lUGH SEIFCONTROL IN THINKING. BREATHING. EATING ■ . ■■■ ■ ^ ■■-■ v . o :/' : :y Columbia {HmbersitA m tfje Cttp of JHeto gorfe COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS Reference Library Given by Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Open Knowledge Commons http://www.archive.org/details/healththroughselOOspin i~i , t o\ (a*} HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL IN THINKING, BREATHING, EATING BY WILLIAM ANTHONY SPINNEY, A.M. Teacher of Mental and Physical Culture BOSTON LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. INTRODUCTION This book is composed chiefly of several lec- tures that the author has given during several years before public and parlor audiences and to his and Mrs. Spinney's private students in connection with their courses in " Mental and Physical Poise through Diaphragmatic Breath- ing, Scientific Physical Culture, and Correct Nutrition." It is published at the urgent re- quest of his lecture listeners, and of their pri- vate pupils. Its purpose is to prove that health of body and mind is a science and an art, and not in any respect a haphazard matter; that all can live more successfully here and now. Tech- nical language has been avoided. If any statements seem unreasonable, before deciding, read or reread any of the following: Prof. William James's " Talks to Teachers " and " Principles of Psychology," Dr. Byron vii viii INTRODUCTION Robinson's " Abdominal Brain,' ' Dr. Angelo Mosso's " Fear," Dr. Thomas Jay Hudson's " Law of Psychic Phenomena," Prof. Elmer Gates's " Brain and Mind," Doctor Airelle's " The Body as a Conductor of Electricity," Mr. Horace Fletcher's " The A, B — Z of Our Own Nutrition," Dr. Luther H. Gulick's arti- cles in The World's Work Magazine, 1906, Mr. Newton N. Eidell's " The New Man, or Knights of the Twentieth Century," Dr. Henry Eussell Chittenden's " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," Dr. C. E. Page's " Natural Cure," Mr. Nikolai Notovitch's " The Un- known Life of Jesus Christ," Dr. Albert Har- ris Hoy's " Eating and Drinking," Mr. Will- iam G. Jordan's " Majesty of Calmness " and " Kingship of Self-control," Dr. C. H. Hen- derson's " Education and the Larger Life." FOREWORD The science and art of health are just as exact as the science and art of agriculture, mechanics, chemistry, or electricity. " Prevention of disease is as much ahead of curing disease as preventing a crime is ahead of sending the criminal to prison." A really sound person is the rarest thing in the world. Out of three hundred of the most likely specimens of women, a very reliable phy- sician pronounced only eight of them well. In the examination of men, the showing was less favorable. " If sickness were the exception and not the rule, health would not be the stock question everywhere and always as it is now. We de- light in a subject we know nothing about, — well illustrated by the clergyman who, at the prayer-meeting, said that he loved to talk about religion because he had so little of it himself. ' ■ ii x FOBEWOKD Physiology and psychology should be inte- gral parts of theology and religion. Moral reform underlies true sanitary reform. " Christianity should be health and the means of escaping from disease." 11 Science helps us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves if we start to reason or behave wrongly; to criticize ourselves more articu- lately after we have made mistakes. A science only lays down lines within which the rules of the art must fall, laws which the follower of the art must not transgress, but what partic- ular things he shall positively do within these lines is left exclusively to his own genius." Health Through Self-Control In Thinking, Breathing, Eating CHAPTER I BREATHING One is what he thinks, acts, breathes, and eats, an individual potential entity in the uni- verse, working out his salvation amidst his environments. Food is taken, and by the digestive appara- tus is put into the blood-circulating system. Air is breathed into the lungs, and oxygen is put into the blood, and, as a constituent of it, circulates with it to all the tissues of the body. The blood, composed of oxygen and food, water included, builds and replenishes the body, and while in the body the circulation of the blood is a life-necessity. No note is taken here of the theories that nitrogen is inhaled into the l 2 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL blood, nitrogen for the negative electric condi- tion, oxygen for the positive, or that neither gas goes into the blood, but that their effect on the inflating and deflating lungs brings about all the necessary results. An inhalation in its widest sense means that oxygen has reached all parts of the body. Thinking and muscular activity cause oxidiza- tion of food, forming carbon dioxide and other products. Warmth, strength, life are thus manifested. More than half the waste or used matter thus produced leaves the body by way of the lungs, being carried thither in the blood from all parts of the body. This exit of waste product is an exhalation. The ingoing and the outgoing of these gases are respiration. Speaking in general terms, life consists in the ingo of oxygen and food, their chemical combinings, and their outgo, consciously, sub- consciously, or unconsciously. What one exhales would be harmful, if it re- mained in the body, but it is food for the vege- BEEATHING 3 table kingdom, which analyzes this carbon diox- ide, retains the carbon for its tissues, returning the oxygen to the atmosphere, which the animal kingdom inhales for new life. The products of the vegetable kingdom are eaten by man and the lower animals, so it turns out that man helps to feed the vegetable king- dom, and it largely feeds him. Whether one is a vegetarian or a meatarian, he must credit the plant kingdom for food, as animal food is a product of the plant kingdom. Me serve and are served. The mineral kingdom also serves the vege- table and animal kingdoms, and is served by them. ' ' Cast thy bread upon the waters ; for thou shalt find it after many days." Put thy breath into the air; for thou shalt find it after many days. — * One inhales life, oxygen, a gift from the plant kingdom, and he exhales carbon dioxide, life to the plant kingdom. Life and love. This S^^ breathing and eating and their results are J superintended by the thinking, the mind. If the three factors, thinking, breathing, and eat- 4 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL ing, are fairly efficient, an equilibrium is estab- lished, and this is health. If health does not exist, then one or two or all these factors are inefficient. In any case the thinking should be the recognized leader. When one feels well, his blood has, at least, two times as much oxygen by weight as di- gested food in it, i. e. two ounces of oxygen for every ounce of digested food, for the replenish- ing and the work of the body. If the full amount of oxygen is not present all the time, the digested food cannot find its mate, oxygen, with which to perform the functions of the body, and weakness, non-health, prevails. Food is of no use without the oxygen, and oxygen is of no use without the food. " Use- less each without the other.' ' A regular physician of excellent standing writes in the New York Medical Journal that people on an average do not breathe one-half enough oxygen to meet the demands of the blood food, that all diseases primarily are caused by lack of oxygen, that all diseases can be cured by adequate oxygen, that medical col- BEEATHING 5 leges should teach " deep breathing " under favorable physical culture conditions. This article is an address that was given before a national convention of physicians and sur- geons. When the breathing is not sufficient, the blood lacks oxygen, and it cannot get rid of its waste, carbon dioxide, for only as much waste can go out through the lungs as oxygen can get in through the lungs, and these acts take place at their best when the lungs inflate and deflate sufficiently. This waste matter soon renders the tissues and blood of the body very impure. When twenty-five per cent, of the blood is oxygen, its purity prevents the increase of bacteria to or beyond the danger point. Insufficient breath- ing reduces this per cent, of oxygen to the danger or disease point, where bacteria in- crease in number, in a short time, so rapidly that the chemistry of the body becomes abnor- mal, and disease or " unease " exists. These bacteria reproduce, die, decay, ferment in the tissues, poison the tissues. The bacteria 6 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL are not the cause of the disease, but they show the condition of the system ; the bacteria being thus producible only by the filthy tissue condi- tions, they are a result, not primarily a cause. An antitoxine serum, as Koch's for diphtheria, may succeed in arousing the leucocytes to be- come phagocytes to devour the bacteria and make them over chemically into a harmless product, or to eliminate them quickly, but oxy- gen enough in the blood is a better antitoxine or poison cure even after the disease is estab- lished, but better still is it as a preventive of disease by an adequate quantity of it being ever present. Eemember that the oxygen and the food, in the proportion of two to one at the least, constitute the blood at its best, and that the blood forms all the tissues by its circula- tion, and that the vitality of any one, other things being equal, depends on enough oxygen coming into the system and enough carbon dioxide getting out of the system, by way of the lungs. In a daily paper recently, it was reported that during a severe wind-storm at sea, several BKEATHING 7 on board the ship were confined in a small cabin. In about an hour, when the storm abated, the occupants were found dead. Why? Aside from fear and other negative emotions, which will be considered in another chapter, the oxygen in the tightly closed cabin being all " breathed up," though the breathing act tended to continue, the outbreathed carbon dioxide and the nitrogen could not support life. The presence, in excess, of the carbon diox- ide in the tissues would tend to paralyze all functions. Not many years ago it used to happen that lamps and candles would wane and sometimes " go out " during religious services in packed small rooms, with doors and windows all closed. This phenomenon was interpreted as a sign that God was displeased with the sinners pres- ent. In this case the oxygen was used and car- bon dioxide was formed, the flames were not fed, and the death of the carbon and oxygen union made darkness. To-day many think God is angry with them because they are suffering from an unkept and 8 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL non-understood law, even the law of health. " Evil is undeveloped good." Enough food is taken at one meal to satisfy the body's needs for several hours. One can fast for weeks or months and live, using the stored-up tissue of his body. Food is stored up. Oxygen cannot be stored up thus. Some animals can store away air, and can omit the lung act for a time, but man must breathe prac- tically all the time, adequately to his life func- tioning. Divers in the primitive way, who held the breath in two minutes under water at a time, did not live beyond middle age. If breathing could be omitted six minutes, death would ensue. " The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." If six minutes without oxygen means death, surely one-half enough oxygen all the time means half-living or half -dying all the time, physically, mentally, spiritually. That is, one would under this condition show less physical strength, less mental clearness, less spiritual development of his mind into peace and good-will. Diseases would tend to develop. BEEATHING 9 The mind at its best makes its body out of at least two times as much oxygen as digested food by weight in the blood. This is a scientific statement as fundamental to health as any law in chemistry, in electricity, or in planetary movements, is to harmony in those depart- ments. The writer intends to make none but scientific statements throughout this book. The state- ments may prove later to be in error by further investigation, as often is the case in scientific work, but the principle to be taught will tend in the right direction, nearest truth. One-half enough oxygen in the system all the time means that enough carbon dioxide is not being exhaled, that the blood is non-vital, builds weak tissues, generates inefficient digestive juices, fulfils the law that brings forth harm- ful bacterial production, induces disease, less life, shorter life. The reaction of this condition of the body through the nervous system on the total mind is depressing, and causes the mind to be a 10 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL weaker leader. Action, reaction, interaction may easily thus bring about death. Enough oxygen taken in all the time means that enough carbon dioxide is being exhaled, that the blood is rich, is building good vital tissue, good digestive juices, that bacteria can- not develop to the danger point, that ease and not disease results, that health abounds, more life, longer life. In this condition, the reaction of the bodily sensations on the total mind is exhilarating and helps to make the mind a still better di- rector. Here action, reaction, and interaction tend to develop " perfect health." CHAPTER II DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING The chest or thorax contains the lungs and heart. The breast-bone, the ribs and back- bone form its bony framework. The chest is closed underneath by the diaphragm, a very elastic muscular membrane. The chest capacity can be enlarged by rais- ing and pushing out the bony framework, espe- cially the ribs. The lung tissue being elastic, the pressure of the atmosphere, at the rate of fourteen pounds to the square inch on the nasal apertures, inflates the lungs by the inflow of air as the chest capacity increases. This is inhalation. The exhalation results in this case by the elasticity of the rib and abdominal muscles and gravity action. This represents rib breathing of one kind or another. If the ribs, the bony framework, remain 11 12 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL fairly quiescent and the diaphragm is moved down and forward, air, for the same reason as in rib breathing, will inflate the lungs. The elasticity of the diaphragm and other muscles will bring about the exhalation. This illus- trates diaphragmatic breathing. The diaphragmatic method of breathing mas- sages the spleen, stomach, liver, and other viscera below the diaphragm, and the lungs and heart above it. All these organs, viscera, are by ligaments, muscles, or membranes at- tached to each other, so that diaphragmatic breathing brings about excellent internal phys- ical culture, which is so necessary to vitality. This movement assists the lymph and blood circulation, relieves the heart. A two hundred pounds' pressure can be exerted by the dia- phragm, partly in pushing the spleen, stomach, and liver anteriorly in the region just below the breast-bone, and partly in pressing downward on the other viscera below. The exhalation causes the organs to relax into position. The depression and rising in the region below the lower end of the breast-bone can easily be seen DIAPHEAGMATIC BREATHING 13 and felt. This alternation of pressure and re- laxation induces the opening and closing of the pores throughout the body. This is an assist- ant respiration. It helps efficient elimination through perspiration, sensible and insensible. This also adds to the vitality of the body when bathing is impossible. Diaphragmatic breathing tends to equalize the positive and negative electrical condition of the body, to bring poise. Abdominal obesity is removed and prevented by this way of breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing puts more oxygen into the system than rib breathing does and exercises the obese abdominal region. It thus can oxidize the surplus fat. Undue obes- ity in any part of the body is favorably acted upon. Constipation and indigestion can in this way be banished. The lower and upper lobes of the lungs are aroused to full work, upper chest development follows, and a more erect bodily attitude is assumed, which gives of itself encouragement. Bronchitis and asthma are relieved, cured. Expectoration ceases as all the lung air-cells 14 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL become used. Bacilli tuberculoses or consump- tion bacteria cannot thrive to a harmful degree in fully used lungs. Eib breathing of any kind does not sensibly act on the diaphragm. Upper chest or clavicular breathing, occurring most in women, in no way uses the diaphragm. Rib breathing causes air to come into the lungs and mixed air to go out, but it does none of the good things that are here written concerning diaphragmatic breathing, or at least not in any marked degree. It can cause but little if any internal physical culture below the diaphragm. Many persons are partly diaphragmatic and partly rib breathers. Rib breathing tends to depress the upper chest; this has a discourag- ing effect. Less oxygen and food in the blood are used to carry on diaphragmatic as com- pared with rib breathing. Chiefly one muscle, the diaphragm, is used and nourished in breath- ing with it, but in rib breathing very many rib- muscles and other tissues are used and nour- ished. To learn to breathe diaphragmatically, it is wise to see a diaphragmatic breather inhale and DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING 15 exhale slowly and deeply, noting and feeling the process. Then placing one's hand on the region before referred to, centre the mind on the hand, making it move out when inhaling and in when exhaling. "When the lungs are being filled, if the diaphragm is used, it must push against spleen, stomach, and liver, thus push- ing the hand out forward. The movement is more easily obtained and recognized when one is lying peacefully on his back, with hand in proper place. The more the diaphragm does the work, the less the ribs will have to do, so think only of the diaphragm when practising. The more peaceful and cheerful one is, the better the dia- phragm responds. Healthy children, healthy savages, healthy animals are diaphragmatic breathers. The first breathing a babe does is after birth, and it is diaphragmatic if the child is well. Every one while peacefully asleep breathes or tends to breathe diaphragmatically. During a nightmare, the ribs would do the work. If one could always live peacefully, not inactively 16 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF - CONTKOL necessarily, he would continue to use the dia- phragm. The writer tested the breathing of a gentleman about eighty years of age, and it was found to be exceptionally poised. On in- quiry if his breathing was always like that, he replied that when he became disturbed at home or at work, he noticed his ribs would begin to take on action as his diaphragm did less work. As soon as one knows the general disposition of a person, he may know how he breathes, and vice versa. Eib breathing arises from self-consciousness, hurry, worry, fear, hustle, impurity, fault-find- ing, despondency, and the like. Habits of mind the reverse of these induce diaphragmatic breathing. There are outward causes also for rib activity, some of which are constriction at the waist, condition of the atmosphere, inac- tivity. Why should not diaphragmatic breath- ing remain throughout life, and why should not sufficient oxygen always get into the lungs? Why are they not guaranteed to us? Breathing and mind states have a close rela- tion. People who are uniformly courageous DIAPHEAGMATIC BEEATHING 17 are efficient diaphragmatic breathers. Efficient diaphragmatic breathers are uniformly cour- ageous. Uniformly sad people are rib and in- efficient breathers and vice versa. Professional athletes are usually strenuous rib breathers. The writer has seen at least two notable exceptions who breathed dia- phragmatically all the time during the most arduous performances. Their whole bearing was quite different from the average profes- sional. When one is in a state of mind called curi- osity, he inclines to hold his breath or make it hitchy. A thief, a murderer, hold the breath when about to act. "When one is writing, if not in perfect peace, he holds his breath, breathes fitfully, long and short. There may be some heredity in some of these cases, if the theory of evolution is true, as holding the breath, in our remote ancestors, would lessen noise and pro- tect them from the enemy. The same motive would lead a thief to hold his breath possibly, but thinking man, if fearless, does not hold his breath instinctively. 18 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL When one concludes to save a person from danger and accident, he takes in a full breath as he starts to do the good deed. The wary, conscious murderer holds his breath out, thus injuring himself first; the goodly, courageous man going into danger holds his breath in, if he holds it at all, thus strengthening himself first. Man could not have any career or free agency if sufficient oxygen and diaphragmatic breath- ing were guaranteed to him. With efficient breathing all the time, one would have no sal- vation to work out. " He that controlleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." A harmful state of mind, as curiosity, hurry, can quickly be banished from the mind by some extra deeper breathing done with the mind con- sciously on the breathing, with as much cheer- fulness as can be assumed, then made real. Oxygen is always lacking when the body and mind are under wrong control, therefore, taking in more oxygen is as sensible, just from this point of view, as taking phosphorus or iron into DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING 19 the system in food is when the body lacks either of these. " I am in health, I breathe," writes Shake- speare, and " Well, breathe awhile, then to it again." Paul Tyner says: " The proportions of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen in the body of an individual at any time are not only an indication of his bodily condition, but will indi- cate his spiritual condition also. That is to say, the character and development of the ego itself, determine the composition of the body, and the proportions of oxygen and nitrogen will be blended in exact relative proportions with the good and evil in the man's nature. Every good thought increases the proportion of oxygen, as a deep breath does, and lessens that of nitrogen, making the body finer or more beautiful. Every evil thought or impulse in- creases the nitrogen, and has the reverse effect on body and soul." CHAPTER III VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING In one person's lungs, on an average, there are 725,000,000 air-cells or vesicles. These are not half-used now by the average breather. These air-cell walls, ii' spread out, would pre- sent a surface of 290,000 square inches, or about two thousand square feet. During twenty-four hours, eight tons of blood pass through the lungs to relieve itself of car- bon dioxide and to take in oxygen. The dis- appointment experienced in finding not half enough oxygen is expressed in body and mind sensations of weariness, discouragement, weak- ness. All the blood passes through the lungs about every three minutes, seeking oxygen. There are thirty pounds of blood in an average per- son in circulation. There are two thousand 20 VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 21 miles of tubing for the blood to circulate through. A drop of blood travels per day 168 miles. Each heart-beat pulses along two and one-half ounces of blood. Remembering that two pounds of oxygen are needed for every one pound of food in the blood to produce health, one can emphatically realize how weary, weak, and distressed such blood must feel by the treatment it receives in the lungs, as here outlined. The heart and all its tubing immediately feel the depression from lack of oxygen, for they are doing the pumping and conducting work of the body, and need oxygen and food combination every second, for they work continuously. The lungs must be nourished with food and oxygen likewise, for they work all the time, and lack of oxygen in the blood that replenishes the lung muscles and other tissues is quickly devitaliz- ing. " The laborer is worthy of his hire." If only half enough oxygen has been taken in, only half of the adequate food can be used for replenishing all the tissues; the other half is useless, a drag on the bodily economy. 22 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL It often happens that many persons feel hun- gry between meals, though they have eaten heartily. If such persons will breathe more deeply for a minute or two and drink some water, the hungry feeling will depart. The body asks for oxygen, and by mistake we give it food. Some people do not know how to give good gifts to their bodies. If the body asks for a fish, shall we give it a stone? One-half the total waste of the body should go out through the lungs, but, if they are doing half-work, some of the waste of the body which cannot get out through the lungs will seek exit through the pores and kidneys, inter- fering with their normal work and that of other organs also. There are other products besides carbon di- oxide that pass out through the lungs. Water vapor and other excretions are present. The charcoal or carbon in the carbon dioxide that is exhaled during twenty-four hours weighs one-half pound ; by sensible and insensible per- spiration, the body eliminates about two pounds of water vapor; there is much oily excretion VAEIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 23 given off by the body. To upset this system by putting some of the lungs' work upon it is very harmful. To interfere with the kid- neys' normal work is still more harmful. Oxygen is a grand agent and it seems to be omnipresent. In the atmosphere it is nearly one-fourth its weight; in the body, combined and uncombined, it is two-thirds ; it constitutes one-half the whole earth's crust; it forms eight-ninths of water. Oxygen and food in certain conditions pass into the blood through the pores. The death of the gilded boy that marched with the church procession in Rome was caused by the stoppage of all the ingo and outgo by way of the pores. One can easily reason how shallow breathers should more and more be troubled with colds, asthma, bronchitis, consumption, pneumonia, diphtheria, and all defective conditions of body and mind. There are all degrees of a disease, from an annoyance to death. A cold may be a little pneumonia, consumption a great deal of bronchitis. Many observing physicians have declared 24 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTROL that man's organs under average behavior ought to last three hundred years. The lungs are underworked, the other organs are over- worked, but all the organs depend upon the good work of the lungs for their healthy con- dition. The lungs themselves depend for their vitality upon their own work. The Old Testament recorded long-livers must have been deep and adequate breathers. Not so much hurry, worry, hustle existed then. The lungs are the most important organ, but they are the most neglected organ. " I haven't time to breathe,' ' " I'm too tired to breathe," and " I'm so hurried I can't breathe," speak volumes. The best tonic to take at all times is oxygen. The only guaran- teed blood purifiers are the lungs. The only successful internal physical culture is dia- phragmatic breathing. A celebrated athlete, about twelve years ago, was a rib breather, and he was scarcely ever free from lung and digestive troubles. He learned to breathe dia- phragmatically, and all his ills left him and have not returned. He is "in training " now VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 25 always without training, whereas while he was a rib breather, the regular athletic practice had to be taken by him to get " into condition. ' ' Athletes as a rule die under forty or fifty years of age. The athlete referred to claims to cure, by diaphragmatic breathing, ninety per cent, of all consumptive cases entrusted to him. Statistics show that one-half of all deaths result from lung diseases. Of course, the other half of the deaths are caused or hastened by lack of oxygen or efficient breathing. Years ago, when the buffalo flourished, the Osage Indians used to go on their annual buf- falo hunts. During the winter, while restricted in their freedom of living on government res- ervation, these Indians always developed toward spring serious consumptive tendencies. All returned from the annual hunt perfectly well. Not more than five per cent, of the oxygen taken in at one inhalation is absorbed into the blood, and the nature of the lung tissue may vary, unfavorably or favorably (from fifteen to thirty-five per cent.), the amount of the oxy- 26 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL gen getting into, and the carbon dioxide getting out of, the blood. There are refined and unre- fined lungs. After the most exhaustive deflation of the lungs from one hundred to two hundred cubic inches of mixed air remain there. The amount of oxygen taken into, and of carbon dioxide put out of the lungs, is least during the peaceful sleep or rest, and greatest during much mus- cular and mind activity, especially if the mind is in a cheerful condition. During catalepsy almost no exchange of these two fluids occurs. Adequate breathing is when this exchange is sufficient for the needs of the body and mind. It is wise to be in the open air and sunshine, but being in the air does not necessarily put oxygen into the blood. Being in pure moving air and taking in an adequate amount of oxy- gen by way of the lungs is life. Many persons are very particular that their furniture, bric-a-brac, windows, and clothing shall be clean. This is not the most important matter. The air in the rooms should be kept clean, pure, kept moving out of and into the VAEIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 27 rooms, mixing with outdoor air, that its purity, cleanness may be constant. Breathed air left in rooms is deadly. Thorough airing often of rooms lived in is necessary for health results. The University of Illinois recently made 497,000 experiments during calm weather, when the air was moving not at all, or slowly. These experiments showed that during the calm period three times as many children as usual were absent from school on account of illness, much beyond the illnesses during wet and windy weather; criminals and others in the State institutions were much more easily man- aged, being more languid; more policemen were laid off on account of sickness ; bank and other clerks made more errors; more deaths occurred. The writer has experienced the ill effect of breathed air and has seen it on those residing in the homes where he has called. In a certain case during warm summer weather in rich apartments, only one window was opened, about four inches. The resident believed in deep breathing and good air, but feared that the dust 28 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL from the street, the floating bacteria, and the various gases would get into the house. This person complained of troublesome perspiration while in the house. All kinds of unhealthy com- plications in the body's functions may come from dirty air, though the furniture be clean. Shivering usually is considered a dangerous symptom. It is an instinctive way of prevent- ing a more dangerous condition, causing warmth by uniting carbon and oxygen in the tissues, generating carbon dioxide, as the burn- ing candle, oil, coal do. Consciously working the muscles of the body will generate more warmth. The horse shivers much while standing dur- ing cold weather, thus building internal fires. Breathing exercises and strengthens the lungs ; especially is this so in higher altitudes, as in parts of Colorado. Weak lungs are strength- ened there by the deeper breathing enforced instinctively on account of the rare atmosphere. A deeper breath is necessary to get as much oxygen as in regions nearer sea-level, where the air is denser. If the lungs are not too weak VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 29 before going to such high and dry levels, they rapidly strengthen, consumption disappears, for adequate oxygen is bacteriacidal. Sleeping in the open cold air is excellent, but if the room slept in has excellent circula- tion and the right temperature, one is uncon- sciously led to breathe adequately even there. Inventions and discoveries are preparing for the race a pure atmosphere. The poisonous products of burning oil, coal, candles, gas, wood are becoming and will become less and less prevalent as the non-oxidizing electric light, power, and heat are more and more used, being produced by electric force generated by chem- ical processes, rivers, tide motion, waterfalls, sun power, windmills, — the using of which forms no carbon dioxide or other deleterious gases. Cooks do not eat as much as they otherwise would, as nutritious steams and vapors aris- ing in the cook-room enter the blood directly by the pores. Air is proved to have in it refined and equiv- alent essences of all vegetable life and prod- 30 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF- CONTROL ucts, and in the " sweet by and by " one will live more and more by breathing. There is a constituent in tobacco, tea, coffee, chloral that does at least two harmful things to man when taken into his system. It pre- occupies the red corpuscles in the blood, thus preventing oxygen getting into the blood, no matter how much one might use his lungs, and the presence of this product leads reflexly to less lung activity. The capillaries and arteri- oles by it are contracted throughout the body, except in the heart and brain. Circulation is interrupted and devitalizing effects will follow. There may be some food elements in these articles, but their bad effects exceed their good ones. There is a certain household where smok- ing used to be the rule, especially in the library or sitting-room. The wife, husband, children, dog suffered lack of health in many ways. A reform took place in the ever-present smoker, and all improved in health. Those who simply breathe in the smoke may fare worse than the smoker. Bath water, after an inveterate smoker had VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 31 bathed in it, quickly caused the death of a fly gently put near the water's surface. Bath water used by the same person after a non- smoking period had no such effect. Red blood corpuscles examined before smok- ing and right after it show great disturbance, change in shape, arrangement, size, which is due to the effect of nicotine. One hundred and ninety-seven men during four years at Yale College showed these results: The non-users of tobacco gained over the users of tobacco in weight, 32 per cent.; in height, 29% per cent.; in chest girth, 19 per cent.; in lung capacity, 66 per cent. For floating, prevention of drowning, deep breathing accomplishes wonders. Inflating the lungs to the fullest, then using shallow breath- ing just enough to keep well alive, the body will float easily. Calisthenic exercises, as practised in many schools, injure health by preventing breathing while the exercises are going on. Carbon diox- ide collects in the blood and much harm follows, e.g. headache. If angular, jerky movements 32 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF - CONTKOL were excluded, and harmonious, flowing mo- tions were substituted, the breathing would go on during the exercises. Short, angular, jerky movements prevent breathing until the end of the exercise, harmonious, flowing motions in- duce it during the exercise. To take " breathing exercises " after the physical exercises are ended is well, but it does not make up for the loss. Breathing should accompany the exercises just as it should ac- company all activity or even non-activity. Some of the angular exercises that prevent breathing develop the fighting instinct. The carbon dioxide collected in the blood, with the breathing in of any impure air in the school- room, tends to develop bacteria and disease. Mouth breathing, i. e. inhaling through the mouth, can change its shape; is very harmful to the pharynx, nasal structures, and adjacent tissues. The nose is a sieve. The nostrils, nares, in good condition will prepare the air going to the lungs by adjusting its tempera- ture to them, preventing the dust particles and other harmful bodies as bacteria inhaled from VAEIOUS FACTS ON BEEATHING 33 getting into the lungs and blood circulation. The nasal structures secrete and excrete about a quart of fluid in twenty-four hours for puri- fying and saturating the air on its way through them to the delicate parts beyond. The inter- nal erectile tissues on the turbinated bones, if healthy, prevent entrance or further passage of dangerous intruders, swelling the passages full, even shutting out harmful gases. The resonance of the voice is much affected by the internal cavities. To keep all these nasal parts in health, one should invariably inhale through the nose. Exhaling occasionally through the mouth, purifies it, but even the exhaling as a rule should be through the nose, which cleanses it and tends to remove any lodgments from the air inhaled. The sieve must be worked, used both ways. Adenoid growths, catarrh, deafness, Eusta- chian tube disorders, earache, inattention, loss of will power may be induced by mouth breath- ing. In a European army recently, smallpox broke out. The statistics showed that mouth breath- 34 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL ers and non-mouth breathers contracted the disease, but that all the deaths were those of the mouth breathers. One can cure mouth breathing. Let him suggest to himself before going to sleep how easy it is and how delight- ful to breathe with the mouth closed. Think it; do it. One may also cure it by learning during the day or just before going to sleep to breathe in and out through the nose with the mouth open, then the mouth will soon close in sleep, being put out of business. Vitalizing with good breathing before going to sleep as- sists much. But nearly everybody is a mouth breather in the daytime, that is, at the pauses in reading, singing, reciting, conversation, he takes in air through the mouth instead of the nose. These littles amount to much during the day. Dry mouth, hoarseness may be caused thus. Learn to breathe in through the nose at all pauses. It is easily learned if one makes a business of it for a few days or weeks. It is healthful always to fill the lungs before beginning to speak, read, or sing, and to keep VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 35 the lungs as full as possible while talking by using every pause for " filling in." The talk- ing breath is not rhythmic, silent breathing is. To exhaust the breath while talking, singing, reading, is to induce mouth breathing, a hurry to fill the exhausted lungs comes to one, and the mouth will take in the air. Poise keeps the lungs loaded while using them for speech. Keep the chest well up and plenty of air in it for the work of talking. If men breathe one-half enough oxygen, women breathe about one-fourth enough, some investigators tell us. Man by effort can breathe 250 cubic inches, women about 150 cubic inches. The quiet, subconscious breathing is not more than twenty-five to thirty-five cubic inches. Children, regardless of sex, are equal breath- ers. Fashion, constriction at the waist, con- ventionality, inactivity, fear, come to the girl sooner or later and reduce her capacity for breathing. Even a tight-fitting dress reduces the breathing one-third. There are those who say that even if con- 36 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL striction at the waist and other pressure against free breathing are anti-health, they would rather be trim and in style without health than natural with health, — a false standard of beauty. This is not the beauty of holiness, wholeness. An instinct, in the past especially, still much in force in woman, of fear of non-support, fear of parent, of brother, of husband, represses breathing. This in some may be still a very conscious cause of diminished oxygen. Lib- erty, freedom in these directions is surely lead- ing to more adequate breathing. The Chinese are wiser than we are when they restrict the growth of the feet, while we restrict the growth and freedom of lungs. They send pure blood to the feet, but only a small quantity, we send impure blood all over the body. In spite of smaller breathing, woman aver- ages longer life than man, as instanced in some insurance companies paying a smaller annuity to woman than to man, as the woman is ex- pected to live more years to draw the annuity. VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 37 Man has and has had more vices and evil temp- tations than woman to shorten his life. Per- haps the open door to woman into a freer life and pursuit may lead her into more weakening pleasures, and thus reduce her average life. It is very unhealthful to live in hot, dry rooms where much carbon dioxide is, and al- most fatally bad to go from such rooms sud- denly out into the cold, crisp air. One should treat his lungs at least as well as he treats his oil-lamp chimney. Such treatment would des- troy his chimney. The air in a room is easily vitiated. One sperm candle burning generates as much carbon dioxide and consumes as much oxygen as a man. An Argand burner vitiates the air as much as twenty-three men do. The electric light, in vacuum lamps, is not at all, or it is the least possible, vitiating. It is not wise, when in health, to sit in rooms whose temperature is above sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The body should be able in such air to keep its temperature high enough. The body must not be pampered. It must be vitally active. Better be too cold than too hot, good 38 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF -CONTROL authority says. It is not wise to wear glasses that relieve the eyes too much. No organ should be assisted to what it can itself do. The Germans thrive in rooms temperatured at sixty-five degrees. Our hospitals should supply more pure air to their occupants. Our factories and stores are very deficient in this direction. More work and better work would be done in the same time, with a full supply of fresh air, and there would be no, or less fatigue. These good results would be realized much more effectually in the mines if each miner could be furnished seven thousand cubic feet of pure air per hour. Under the very best mine conditions, three thousand cubic feet per person are needed. One part of carbon dioxide in one thousand parts of common air, which is composed chiefly of eighty parts of nitrogen and twenty of oxy- gen, is endurable. Eeduce the twenty parts of oxygen to seventeen and death may ensue. No attempt is here made to give directions for physical exercises with breathing, as it is so much wiser to learn personally from a VAKIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 39 teacher. The following are merely a few health hints. Physical culture includes mental culture. Physical and mental poise cannot be separately taught. In all positions of the body, let the chest be kept well up and free. Eelax, but do not " slump." Sit well back in the chair, leaning forward a little, resting on the whole spine and ribs, chest well up. This fa- vors breathing. Sitting freely in a chair low enough not to press against the thigh muscles, with legs never crossed, feet flat on the floor, hands not clasped, assists circulation, includ- ing the heart, as thus the pressure on veins and arteries is decreased. Whistling and blowing soap-bubbles arouse lung use. Breathe consciously during all waking hours, deeply, a little at a time and often, without any set plan. To run with least exhaustion and to go up-stairs most easily, regulate your breathing. Breathe more than usual at these times, in a cheerful, poised way. Begulate your lungs and you control the heart's rhythm. Short, quick breathing excites the heart; poised, deeper breathing calms it. All physical 40 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF -CONTROL exercises, as such, should be taken in rhythm with the breathing. Learn to relax as a habit. Eelax does not mean to " feel lazy." Every muscle, all the tissues in the body,, should be brought into action every day, to assist the circulation of the blood and lymph, to help every organ in its secreting work, to give elasticity, agility, strength to all parts. If the natural daily activities are not sufficient for these purposes, then select certain adapt- ive physical exercises to be taken in rhythm with the most cheerfully relaxated but deepest breathing, in as light and loose clothing as pos- sible ; mornings on rising and evenings before retiring are the best time, if convenient. The mind must be consciously on the breathing, or some part you wish to improve. Never tire yourselves in these exercises. Eeplete, not de- plete yourself. Better underdo than overdo. Better still to do neither. Agedness can be free from decrepitude if one will enjoy every day appropriate bodily activities in the spirit indicated. VARIOUS FACTS ON BREATHING 41 " Tune up the fine strong instrument of thy being To chord with thy high hope and do not tire ; When both in key and rhythm are agreeing, Lo ! thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire." — Ella Wheeler Wilcox. CHAPTER IV THE SYMPATHETIC AND THE CEREBR0 - SPINAL NERVE SYSTEM — THE SUBCONSCIOUS AND CON- SCIOUS MIND — HOW THE MIND BUILDS THE BODY HEALTHFULLY There are ten million nerves in a human body. Nerves require five times as much oxy- gen as any other tissue for their building and nourishment. The irritability, sensitiveness, of a nerve cannot long continue without oxygen. A nerve removed from the body is found to remain sensitive longer in oxygen than in air, and in air than in an atmosphere containing no oxy- gen. An ideal nerve system has three requisites: a brain or a receiving and distributing centre ; conductors to and from the brain; parts reached by the conductors which connect them 42 THE NEEVE SYSTEM 43 with the brain. In general, brain, nerve, muscle. It would be wise for the reader to study Dr. Byron Bobinson's " Abdominal Brain " before finishing this chapter, if his faith is shocked. There are, in quite a differentiated way, two nerve systems. The sympathetic nerve system has for its centre or regulating brain the epi- gastric plexus, or the solar plexus, or the ab- dominal brain, three names for one centre. Abdominal brain is the most appropriate name, but solar plexus is the name more commonly used. This brain is situated in front of the back- bone on the abdominal aorta, just below the diaphragm and around the caeliac axis or ar- tery going to the stomach, where it emerges from the abdominal aorta. This brain is com- posed of gray matter, with incoming and out- going nerves. It has a length of one and a half inches, a width of one inch. From this centre radiate to all the organs and parts of the body, nerves, sensory and motor doubtless, which develop plexuses in the various organs, 44 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL and ganglia or enlarged places of nerve mate- rial, relays, small brains in different regions, as on either side of the backbone near the exits and entrances of the spinal nerves. This nerve system is used to bring about all the life proc- esses of the body. The subjective, subconscious, or subliminal mind builds this nerve system out of blood, as a staging-work for building the body. Before birth the mind that builds the body is almost solely subconscious. It acts from the solar plexus, especially by means of the sympathetic nerve system, performing all the laboratory, chemical, and electric work of the body, such as digestion, assimilation, circulation, secretion, excretion, elimination. It works one hundred per cent, of the time; it never strikes except in case of death. It built us before birth, builds us now. The cerebro-spinal nerve system has for its centre the cranial brain. Some of its parts are the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, spinal cord, nerves, sensory and motor. Twelve pairs of nerves pass from the brain through THE NEEVE SYSTEM 45 the cranium to the eyes, ears, nose, face, mouth, tongue, and other parts. Thirty-one pairs pass from the spinal canal and are distributed in their branchings to the skin, muscles, and other parts of the body. It is said that nerves pass from the brain, spinal canal, solar plexus, but it is equally true that as many nerves pass into these centres. The objective, conscious, or supraliminal mind, or the mind acting objectively, con- sciously, brings about especially locomotion, muscle movement, observation through the five senses, reason or understanding, by using, in a way, chiefly the cerebro-spinal nerve system. The mind begins in earnest after birth to act objectively on objects, consciously to produce locomotion, reason. It does not busy itself directly with the chemical laboratory processes of the body. It does not act all the time; it may cease its conscious work even ninety per cent, of the time, and that, too, while one is his average self. In sound sleep, it lulls to zero action. In conscious states the mind really 46 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL thinks in spots, in points, as one experiences who observes his mental processes. The mind, conscious and subconscious, in its way builds the body, and in its activities it unfolds itself into poise or non-poise, into spirituality or non-spirituality. Threefold de- velopment of health is physical, mental, spiri- tual. The spiritual health is the refined, bal- anced, poised, peaceful, good-willed develop- ment of the mind in a corresponding body. Mind may not be double, two, certainly not so out of the body. Let it be called mind, more mind, less mind. The present unification of mind may have evolved from warring colonial conditions, but now at least a mental president has appeared that can consciously lead. These two nerve systems are quite well dif- ferentiated, yet they are united, and act, react, and interact on each other. The two systems have union in the ganglia on either side of the spinal column, as well as in other parts of the body. The nerve-tips of one system approach those of the other, and back and forth go elec- tric discharges, equalization, balance, poise, or THE NEEVE SYSTEM 47 the reverse of these conditions. Two minds, one mind; two nerve systems, one nerve sys- tem. The nerve systems are physically quite different. The cerebro-spinal nerves are sheathed, the sympathetic are sheathless. The most recent investigation is without doubt proving this. When a person shivers from cold, his subjective mind starts food and oxy- gen fires. The cerebro-spinal nerves may be set in motion. The conscious mind may try to prevent this shaking, usually without success. When one concludes to warm his body by threshing his arms about his chest, he is under the action of mind risen to consciousness. One may say that reflex action, by means of regulating nerve-centres, brings about the shiver, but that does not explain. Behind the reflex act is the subjective mind, habit or in- stinct. The writer once copied a number of items for publication. The printer sent him a proof- sheet. It was corrected, approved, and re- turned. On arising the next morning, the mes- sage suddenly came into the conscious mind 48 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF - CONTKOL from the subconscious that the printer had left out item number eight. Immediate communi- cation with him proved this message to be true, and copies were about to be made without the number eight item. In originally arranging these items for the printer, the subconscious mind had received thorough impressions of all the items. The mind consciously looked rapidly over the work and detected no omission. The subconscious was faithful and reported the discrepancy. As no authoritative line of demarcation can be definitely drawn between conscious and sub- conscious mind-work, no particularizing is here attempted. The subconscious does receive de- cisions, add, subtract, multiply, divide, but pos- sibly it does no primarily original work while functioning in the body during this life. A nerve system is necessary to the chemical and electrical building work in a body. In the simplest forms of animal life, all paths, ' ' wire- less " tissues, may do the life-work, but not so, at least, in human beings. Babes are some- times born without a cerebro-spinal nerve THE NEKVE SYSTEM 49 system. They do not live, could never stand up, or observe with the five senses ; no objective, conscious mind could arise. Babes are never born without the sympathetic nerve system well developed. Therefore the cerebro-spinal nerve system does not act as a body-building frame- work. There is not a third nerve system, hence the sympathetic nerve system, the vaso-motor nerve system, is the system used for life-work in the body. Life, mental and physical, is initial in the abdominal brain, the solar plexus. Two germ- cells, one from the mother, one from the father, unite into one cell, the two nuclei becoming one. This union cell becomes by fission and division, two cells; these two become four; these four eight, and so on until all the organs are formed and the body is complete. This takes place just as rapidly as the subjective mind builds out its sympathetic nerve-staging with the mother's blood, filling in all the structures. The subjective mind here builds as well as its condition allows it to do, it being the sum total of heredity and instinct from the past, includ- 50 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL ing the parent's influence. Reincarnation, if it is a fact, does not interfere with this reason- ing. Mind builds a body. One vibration clothes itself in another vibration, it presses itself out, expresses itself, phenomenizes. " For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form and doth the body make." — Spenser. Some one replies that the " backbone groove " forms first in the egg, therefore life is not initial at the solar plexus. The life-work going on at the solar plexus cannot be seen by the observer, and the first result seen is the " groove " caused by the sympathetic nerves' work, e. g. the splanchnics. To attempt to see this initial work would be to destroy it, as it is within, not on the surface. If a person will balance himself on a " mus- cle bed, ' ' which is a delicately balanced wooden bed, then inhale and exhale more thoroughly, or vary his breathing, he can cause his body to seesaw. Working the feet would draw blood to them and cause the " muscle bed " to sink, go down at the foot end. To say or think a THE NEKVE SYSTEM 51 line of the multiplication table would cause the head end of the ' ' muscle bed ' ' to go down, suf- ficient blood being drawn to the brain by think- ing, alone, to change the centre of gravity of the body. Blood flows to a used part, or to a part one thinks to use, or that he thinks on. The reason for this latter statement's truth is largely or perhaps entirely evolutional, in- stinctive. For millions of years in the evoluted race the thought to move or use any part of the body has been followed by its use, which drew blood to the part to enable it to be better used. From the law of the association of two or more things together, or one following the other, and if the first part happens, the last tends to hap- pen whether the second part is performed or not, — thinking about the feet, as though to move, and yet not moving them, causes more blood to flow to them. This is one reason why dwelling on a part of the body that is troubling one increases the trouble, especially if an extra flow of blood would cause congestion. To think on a weak heart, even cheerfully, might stop 52 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL its action. No emotional cause is yet consid- ered in these statements. One sees how cold feet can be warmed by making them active, which would also relieve the head of some blood and thus induce sleep and drive away headache as well. Peacefully working any part of the body, even the neck, will bring sleep. Now if one, balanced on the muscle bed, in a calm state of mind, becomes frightened, the muscle bed will tip down at the head end. The body's centre of gravity is changed to a point nearer the head by more blood flowing into that region of the body. The effect of the fright on the mind, objectively if awake, then subjectively, so affects the solar plexus that the sympathetic nerves (vaso-motor nerve system) in the coatings of all the blood- vessels constrict, make smaller the calibre of all the blood capillaries and arterioles, except those in the heart and brain, which dilate, thus driving much blood toward and into the heart and brain, leaving other parts of the body with an insufficient supply. This brings about non- equable circulation of the blood throughout the THE NEEVE SYSTEM 53 body, some parts having too much, some parts too little, but the strength of the body depends directly upon the circulation of the blood every- where adequately. Some tissues are surfeited, congested, some are starved. The pressing effect on the heart, in the heart, in the brain, lead to dangerous results. Heart failure, apo- plexy, general paralysis would be natural re- sults. The two thousand miles of blood circu- latory tubing are played upon in a very un- healthful way. Ee suits vary as the emotion is more or less intense. It might happen that intense fright would paralyze the nerves, and contraction or dilation of the blood-vessels might occur. Becoming peaceful again, the subjective mind brings back normal circulation through the sympathetic nerves' regulating the size of the blood-vessels. Fright induces cold feet, cold external and cold distal parts from brain and heart, insomnia, a muddled brain; peace induces warm feet, warm external parts, sleep, clear head. It is easy to see how to think on insomnia, brings it, increases it. 54 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Now combine use of feet and peaceful thought on them, and a seeming miracle is worked, for sleep and warm feet are the results. Peace of mind draws a normal amount of blood to the head and feet. Any part of the body, as the stomach, can be helped by thus sending more blood to it to supply its lack, but, if one is always poised, all parts are fully supplied. Medicine, surgery, osteopathy, any method of treatment, to be most successful must act with the assistance of a fearless mind in the patient. The blood's quality and equable cir- culation are of the first importance, and the state of mind controls the circulation as well as the quality of the blood. Medicine given cannot reach the desired part properly unless the blood is flowing there naturally. Some physicians with medicine, help the patient, some physicians without medicine cure the patient. The trust, fearlessness, established by the doc- tor in the patient is the first essential. A bread pill, with overwhelming trust in the physician's skill, is life to the patient. A boy who had on his finger a ring he could THE NEEVE SYSTEM 55 not pull off was suddenly frightened by the experimenter. His arms were hanging at his sides, the ring fell to the floor. The shrinking blood-vessels in the finger reduced the size, and gravity pulled the ring away. In fright, as stage fright, the blood-vessels in the eye contract, driving the blood inwardly, the pupils enlarge, light floods in as into an albino's eyes, and the person cannot see indi- viduals in the audience ; all is misty. His knees, his arms, in fact, his whole body become weak on account of lack of blood to these parts. Kneeling in prayer came about originally from fear or fright. Becoming conscious of a god believed to be a tyrant brought about all the results just described by the effect through the subjective mind acting on the circulation in a disastrous way. To-day when one kneels to pray, love is in his mind, and strength, not weakness, in his knees. Seals are captured by sudden fright caused by shouts or gun discharges from the captors coming quickly upon them. They cannot see, they cannot move, Children who seem to dis- 56 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL obey an angry parent sometimes move not, an- swer not, from weakness induced by fright. The snake charms the bird. The charm may be inability from fright to see and move. The mind in wide-awake fright weakens ob- jectively, then subjectively, then the sympa- thetic nerve system puts into execution the mind state, into every cell of the body, weak- ness for weakness. One may notice in a fright the troublesome sensation near the heart or stomach, viz., in the solar plexus or abdominal brain. He can be aware of this shock going from the cranial brain by way of the phrenic, pneumogastric, splanchnic, and other sympa- thetic nerves to the solar plexus, reorganizing there and spreading throughout the body by way of the whole sympathetic nerve system into the cerebro-spinal nerve system, into every cell. The whole body, also as a mass of cells, conducts this mental, chemical, electric wave or shock. The writer, in youth, believed that Satan as such, in visible animal form, was travelling up and down the earth seeking whom he might THE NERVE SYSTEM 57 devour, especially wicked boys. He believed he was a wicked boy, and expected a visit at any time from his Satanic Majesty. One after- noon in the country, in summer, while alone sitting on a fence, he saw, unknown to him then, what proved to be a porcupine, approach- ing near his dangling feet. Satan was recog- nized by him. Quick as lightning the sins of weeks passed through his mind, fear of the hor- ror of Hades took hold of him, — he fell to the ground, tried to call for mother a few rods away in the house, tried to rise and walk, tried to see. It must have been minutes, it seemed hours, before he regained strength enough to reach the house. This illustrates practically the scientific working of an undesirable emo- tion. The reaction of the body nerve conditions on the mind in such cases is to increase the fright by action and reaction, exhaustion as it were coming to the rescue. Experiment, experience, prove that a ,law exists between the emotional states and the 58 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL circulation of the blood, as uniform and certain in effect as any law in chemistry. This emotion of fright not only interferes with the circulation of the blood, but at the same time it interrupts the rhythm and work of every function in the body, of every eell, in fact. Consider the lungs especially, as they have the work of getting into the blood circulation two times as much oxygen as food by weight, digested into the blood. Fright through the subjective mind's action in the sympathetic nerve system, regulated from the solar plexus, causes the lungs to expand and contract much less, or to act irregularly, or to act in a hitchy manner, or to " hold the breath out." The waste matter, carbon dioxide, in the system can very inadequately escape through the lungs and the oxygen cannot get into the blood ade- quately, for the air-cells of the lungs are not inflating and deflating efficiently. The blood becomes very much devitalized. The lungs, spleen, stomach, liver, kidneys, salivary and other glands are not only receiving blood in- THE NERVE SYSTEM 59 adequately, non-equably, but the blood is devi- talized, deoxygenated, carbon-dioxidized. No organ can function health with this kind of circulation and this quality of blood. In a few moments after the fright begins, a poison is generated in the tissues, the blood, a toxin as harmful as the ptomaine poison of the worst cold-storage chicken. It is discover- able by chemical experiment in the breath, per- spiration, blood-tissues, urine. Anger, another negative emotion, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. One poisons the atmosphere while frightened or in anger, and he thus literally harms those who breathe in the results of his fear or anger. Anger in the snake secretes a poison in a sac to be used against his enemy. Man has no such sac as the snake has wherein to store the toxin which he develops for the same purpose, and he poisons himself more than he does his enemy. Every wrong emotion, every shade of it, has a definite harmful effect on the whole being. The poisons thus gener- ated have been extracted and given to dogs and even human beings, inducing in them states { 60 HEALTH THROUGH SELF - CONTROL of mind and acts similar to those of the per- sons from whom the poisons were derived. These results are brought about by the same process of mind action through the solar plexus and its ramifications to all parts of the body where the chemist mind does its chemic work just exactly as it feels; if it is in anger, it builds angry tissue. The carbon dioxide is held in the system while oxygen is coming in but little during the fright, fear, or anger, this and the toxin gen- erated in the tissues by these same emotions cause the blood to be reduced in oxygen below twenty-five per cent. This condition of blood, as stated in Chapter I., compels bacteria to multiply beyond the danger point, and weak- ness, or disease, or death must follow. The emotion in a mind full of hate is more injurious than any other state of the mind. The toxin generated in one hour of hate would, if taken into their systems, kill eighty men. " Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer and hath no eternal life. ' ' He murders himself surely. " Who is my brother? " Partial THE NEEVE SYSTEM 61 elimination through the lungs, pores, kidneys saves the hater from quick death. One could not hate intensely, steadily, for an hour. Ex- haustion or death would stop that mental proc- ess. " Anger burns itself out " is a common saying. * The emotion of fear also upsets the balanced condition of the body, the positive and negative equilibrium of local and universal flow of elec- tric energy. One who is in fear is in a condition that resists this flow. He can be more easily electrocuted or " struck by lightning " than when fearless. Experiments with the galva- nometer prove this, and the writer has had the experience. Copper wire is a good conductor of electricity ; it resists the current very little. Eesistance would fuse it. The metal conduc- tors used for electric lights resist the flow and emit light by friction or high temperature. Oxidization would take place if the atmosphere were admitted to the conductor. It is a proved fact that the more negative one is in his habits of thought and act, the more he resists the electric current, the more he elec- 62 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL trocutes himself. One does not need to wait for his literal sulphur Hades after the day of judgment beyond this life, for right now and here all are experiencing it according to their life-work. Sulphur is put down as the fifth element of the fourteen that compose the body. When one, in his pessimistic thoughts and acts, elec- trocutes himself by degrees, he is without doubt using chemically sulphur in the process, oxidiz- ing it. So the physical fact that so many dis- believe in is within them now and will continue to be until a salvation is worked out, until the life " is purified as by fire." The ninety-first Psalm declares that a " thousand shall fall at his side, ten thousand at his right hand, but that it shall not come nigh him, ' ' — one who ' ' dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. ,, This would be a natural result in a thunder-storm where the really good and the really bad were mingled. The righteous are good conductors, the wicked are bad conductors of the electric vibration. Eubber and rubbers are non-conductors. THE NEEVE SYSTEM 63 Leather boots are safer, bare feet safest in a lightning-storm. There is a scientific way of clothing ourselves as to the healthful conduc- tivity of the electric energy, mentally, phys- ically, and spiritually. When people say the righteous are especially protected by God, their belief has a scientific foundation, but they do not so explain it. The general results, then, of a frightened state of mind are: Less lung air-cell surface is used; less carbon dioxide comes away from the blood, less oxygen goes in; the circulation of the blood is made non-equable, too much or too little, throughout the body ; toxins are gen- erated in the tissues, making the blood still more devitalized for body-building; these with the lingering carbon dioxide contaminate the blood with extremely poison products; then the blood has less than twenty-five per cent, of oxygen in it, thus compelling, by the law of bacterial reproduction, a sudden increase in bacterial life, in a very short time, and there takes place death, decay, and fermentation of these animalcules in the system; then the elec- 64 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL trie, magnetic condition of every cell, atom, molecule of the body is upset, deathward. These conditions may be disease, decline, non- ease, feebleness, death. The beginning, some- where, of this result is a wrong emotional state of mind, which must act harmfully on all the life processes. Bacteria only show the mental and physical condition, they do not primarily cause the disease. There are other causes leading to disease, for the universe, the cosmos, each entity acts, reacts, interacts, each on the other, but the re- sults depend on how the mind emotionally handles all the vibrations for and against it, " yesterday, to-day, and forever.' ' Thirty de- grees F. is brisk life to one, death to another. How the recipient is able to react decides dis- ease or health. Although the emotional, men- tal point of view is being here emphasized, causation is manifold, but " Everything works together for good to them that love God," his laws. A body in the condition here described can- not be well, the mind is not well. No good THE NEKVE SYSTEM 65 digestive juices, no good tissue-building can exist. The weakest spot in the body, from whatever cause, will be made worse, and dis- ease there be seated. Consumption of the lungs might be initiated or renewed or intensified. The objective mind was here at fault in ad- mitting a frightened condition into its states of consciousness. The subjective mind fol- lowed the lead and worked or vibrated all the evil effects into the body tissues. All wrong instincts and past bad habits make it all the more easy for the subjective mind to go to pieces and do worse work. All negative, pessi- mistic, wrong emotions, as hurry, worry, impa- tience, dread, faultfinding, despondency, jeal- ousy, regret, remorse, mourning, impurity, and many more children of the same family, act in a similar manner as fear, anger, and fright act, as described, producing similar results in pro- portion to the negativity of the emotion. These causes and effects constitute a law as fixed and uniform as the law of gravitation. This nerve condition of the body, reported to the mind, reacts on it, weakens it still more; 66 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL and action and reaction make recovery more difficult. The soul vibration expresses a poor vibra- tion, and the built vibration reacts badly on the builder. It is something like a person's being ashamed of his work. This sad body- building and its reaction often drives one to suicide. One seldom consults a physician until his disturbing stomach, or liver, or lungs, or some organ drives him to it. The illness of the mind may go on a long time before the reaction from the body is sufficiently severe to arouse the person to try to get relief from his physical suffering. This suggests: " Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind ex- ceeding small ; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all." If a person were frightened by an automo- bile coming speedily toward him, the fright causing him to be confused in sight and weak- ened in muscle would prevent escape from ac- cident. It is said that " fear catches disease.' ' THE NERVE SYSTEM 67 Change " catches " to " produces " and it is a scientific statement. " The thing I greatly feared has come upon me." " Prophecy fulfils itself." When the solar plexus receives a negative emotional shock, as in a sudden scare, the re- sults go in all directions through the sympa- thetic nerve system. Sometimes the least re- sistance is toward the stomach plexus, some- times to the heart or other organs. One often hears, " She died of broken heart." This can be true of any organ. It can be death from a sudden shock or from many and oft repeated shocks, and perhaps little ones. A sudden shock occurs, as in the case of Ananias, whose remorse was so keen that the rhythm and blood circulation of his heart were broken or stopped almost instantly. A sensitive wife and mother, by the dis- agreeable attitude of a husband, son, or daugh- ter long continued, may die years before she would have died if husband, son, and daughter had been harmonious. " No one liveth to him- self and no one dieth to himself." 68 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL A house may burn down in an hour or dis- appear as thoroughly after many years by gradual decay, disintegration. Both processes are the same. Oftentimes a person is not aware that he is living in emotional states that are shortening, lessening his life, showing disease. Mrs. X., wife of a clergyman, was discuss- ing at a summer resort the effects of the emo- tions on the body, and she declared there was no scientific truth about it, for she said she had suffered and was suffering very much from neuralgia in the face. It had been remarked that this nerve pain was often caused or made worse by a condemnatory or hating spirit in the sufferer. She said she loved everybody, it was her duty; she hated no one. Just then a Mr. Y., working at the hotel, who the evening before had maltreated a boy, a boarder, ap- peared. She remarked: " There goes that Y. I would just love to annihilate that man." " A person is what he thinks, not what he thinks he is." Suppose an electric car is about to run into THE NEEVE SYSTEM 69 a person, and that that person does not allow himself to be frightened, but remains poised and attentive to the business in hand. He feels courage even at the solar plexus and strength throughout the body. The objective mind re- mains firm, the subjective mind follows the lead, and all the functions of the body are helped. This person thus poised will be able to escape unhurt, doubtlessly, but would be injured or killed if he gave up to fright and its attendant weakness. His self-control brings adequate action of the lungs as to oxygen go- ing into and carbon dioxide coming out of the blood ; the circulation of the blood will go equa- bly everywhere to strengthen the body; there will be no extra toxins found in the tissues from this poise; the blood will be at its best for body-building; the twenty-five per cent, or more of oxygen in the blood will prevent bac- terial multiplication; the positive and nega- tive magnetic condition of every atom in his body will be balanced, no self-electrocution will occur. More life, more strength, clear mind will be his, and he can hardly do otherwise 70 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL than escape unhurt. His eyes will be clear, his muscles strong and agile. If he should be in- jured, he would recover more quickly than under fright, for his vitality is unimpaired. " For as he thinketh in his heart (solar plexus subjective state) so is he." The reaction of such a bodily condition on the total mind is exalting, and the action and reaction between the two for good abides and increases. When poise, fearlessness, is shown in the presence of ferocious animals, it not only saves the peaceful, fearless one, but acts mightily on the animal for peaceableness. Daniel in the lions ' den is an instance of this. Among men the effect of the kindly poised person on all is of every-day note. Our domestic animals obey us best and most promptly through this law of true poise. The home, the school, the crowd illustrate it. A soldier of the Civil War, whose business makes it necessary for him to call at many private houses, used to be very much annoyed by dogs barking at and even biting him. He became interested in mental THE NEKVE SYSTEM 71 and physical poise, thought along these lines, read the best books on it, practised what they preached. In a very short time he became con- scious that the dogs were licking his hands, trotting gladly by his side, lying down near his feet when he sat on the lawn or piazza to talk business, instead of as formerly barking at and biting him. During this same time this person's eyesight very much improved, a tu- mor disappeared, his hair turned darker, his indigestion left him, a strength and springi- ness came into his walk. Not a miracle, but definite results by exact law. All positive, optimistic, helpful, right emo- tional states of mind, like courage, patience, peace, self-control, harmony, purity, unselfish- ness, love, act on all the functions of the body for health in a similar manner as peacefulness has just been described to act. The mind is in health when it is poised, and it builds about itself a poised body. An honest, skilful car- penter builds an honest, durable house ; a dis- honest, unskilled (or even skilled) carpenter builds a dishonest, " cheap-material " house. 72 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Chemical tests of the breath of persons in cheerful states of mind have been made, then similar tests with the same persons while in anger, or just after it, have been repeated. The breath in the second experiments contained alkaloid poisons; in the first experiments no poison of any kind was found. Cold perspira- tion that is caused by fear has in it an alkaloid poison, but the perspiration of the same person working while in a joyous state of mind con- tains no such poison. These causes and effects in mind and body, along the positive, optimis- tic, emotional side of life, constitute a law as immutable as any astronomical law. The subjective mind ever being influenced by the objective, working especially in and through the solar plexus and all its nerve ramifications to every vital point in the body, acts as a chem- ist mind in building the blood into the body successfully or unsuccessfully. The subjective mind, educated by all the past objective experi- ence, instinct, heredity, is heaven or hell. It may well be called the " book of life, ' ' the daily " day of judgment.' ' THE NEKVE SYSTEM 73 The mind acting objectively is a pioneer, a sentinel, and increaser or decreaser, a helper or hinderer, the " dove from the ark " — per- chance. The objective, it would seem, ought to guard the subjective mind, but it often happens that the objective attempts to lead wrongly, and the fairly well-educated subjective mind up to that time, refuses to obey instructions. Sometimes it will not heed the good instruc- tions of the objective, and will perversely do the thing advised against. However, in either case, the objective is not able to fill its posi- tions in a perfect way. The writer has found it comparatively easy to improve the morality and spirituality of the young — it appeals equally strongly to all ages — by getting into their minds a practical mo- tive for the desire of morality and spirituality. Some people develop morality as naturally as a duck takes to water; it is instinctive, in- herited, hereditary, worked out in a previous life or in ancestors, or in reincarnation, or in all these ways. Others have to be trained and helped all the time to get a habit of good be- 74 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL havior. It is a matter of one talent or five talents. The custom has been much to drive, to force politeness, education into the young, to say, ' ' Thus saith the Lord, ' ' and give no reason, ex- planation, or encouragement, except, perhaps, " Do it because I tell you to." " Force is hell; attractive, persuasive consent is heaven.' ' A boy of excellent family, as the word goes, became more and more irritable with his mother, angry often. He was for a few weeks a private student of the writer 's. It was found that the boy very much desired to be strong, a good football, baseball, tennis, golf player, a fine swimmer, rapid runner, to be at the head of his class in the high school, to study law, practise successfully, and live a long, happy life with comfortable surroundings, self- achieved. It was easy to convince him ob- jectively and subjectively that no one could think any more of him than he thought of him- self, and he very much desired to be appre- ciated by everybody. All this was the soil in which the seed was planted that must develop THE NEEVE SYSTEM 75 into poise and spirituality. He was convinced by experiment, observation, practice, explana- tion that lie could obtain all these desires of his if he would begin at once to be thought- fully kind to his mother, to all, to do more and more to others as he would be done by. His interest was deep in the laws of poised mental states, positive emotional conditions, in the good results on the circulation, on the qual- ity of the blood, on bacteria, on the electric condition, on the fact that kindliness kept the blood rich, and unkindliness generated poison in it, on the oxygen carbon dioxide law, that all this meant a clearer mind, more happiness, health, success, long life. He began his mind reform immediately. In a very few days a parental report came that there had been al- most an instant change from a hateful attitude of mind and act to a kindly, almost loving one. In a few weeks his " new mind " was fixed. He has recently said that at first he had to reason when trying to act better toward his mother, by thinking that if he would be suc- cessful with himself in all his desires he must 76 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL " curb his temper. " After a little he did not have to repeat this " association of ideas." His improved conduct toward all followed in the same way. He is becoming more and more altruistic, anotheristic, not consciously selfish, not selfistic; he is succeeding happily. " A lily grows out of the mud " and " A rose may grow out of a dunghill. ' ' There is no better way to teach anatomy, physiology, hygiene. This is applied science. In this way the strength of mind and body that purity gives can be taught perfectly nat- urally and effectually. Let us help the young to get experience of God, good, law into them objectively and subjectively, and not try to drive it in second-hand. Two persons eat of the same poisoned chicken. One dies, the other is not affected. The person not feeling any bad results may be a cheerful, good breather, with pure blood, excellent, equable circulation, bacteria at a minimum, good electric condition, pores work- ing well for elimination, kidneys active, all the functions of the body wide awake. A little THE NERVE SYSTEM 77 poison taken into the system by such a person would be so quickly chemicalized into a harm- less product or eliminated from the tissues that no bad effect could occur. The one dying may be a pessimistic, shallow breather, with poor blood, non-equable circulation, abundant bacteria, negative electric condition, toxined blood, pores, kidneys, and all functions slug- gish. Such an one must suffer, die. This is a law of the universe. The ninety-first Psalm is thought of in this connection: " There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwell- ing,' ' referring to him who " dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. ,, Only " se- cret," because so few find it. There is no miracle in all this ; it is natural, universal, uni- form kindly law for all who think it, live it. " He sendeth the rain on the just and the unjust," but the truly just man is not affected by the rain as the really unjust man is. In the former no bad effects are shown by the soaking; in the latter, pneumonia may start up. 78 HEALTH THBOUGH SELF-CONTEOL Hate has the most unhealthful effect on the mind and body, while love has the most health- ful effect. Love enriches the tissue, adds nu- tritious values by rechemicalizing harmful sub- stances into harmless ones, stimulates the cells to manufacture extra energy, puts one in tune with the Infinite, to vibrate electrically, mag- netically with the universal energy, God-con- sciousness. As more love comes into the mind, the chemic laws of the body change from plane to plane. Less carbon and less oxygen are used to perform a " given act " or think a " given thought " when one is imbued with extreme unselfishness, love. " Love is the fulfilling of the law." " He that loseth his life for my sake (my princi- ples) shall find it." The law is fulfilled or filled full by the greatest results being accom- plished for all, self included, by the least ex- penditure of energy. This is Godlike. One can help another best by making him- self better. One can most readily make him- self better by helping others. To lose one's life, to spend his time and energy for a good THE NERVE SYSTEM 79 purpose, is a better life, true living; is unself- ishness, love, strength, health. There is a mental condition called intellect- ive, which may affect health neither for better nor for worse, but it is doubtful if any one is ever in such a condition, at least, long at a time, or purely so. If a surgeon can ampu- tate a man's leg as a matter of good work, without any experience of pity, regret, glad- ness, and delight, then he is in an intellective state of mind. It is health then to cultivate only the healthful emotions, as peace, self-con- trol, cheerfulness, patience, gentleness, har- mony. It is non-health to indulge in the emo- tions of fear, hurry, worry, anger, jealousy, hate. One needs not to cultivate the negative states, as he will have enough of that kind pre- sented in life's real experiences. Very few, if any, die in an army after a battle when it is marching victoriously. In an army defeated, retreating, very many die. This is true even when there are equal num- bers wounded on both sides. Many who attend funerals " catch cold," 80 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL have pneumonia, feel depleted while even at- tending the ceremony and much more after- ward. The negative emotions act the same " yesterday, to-day, and forever." If one dwells on depression, he must take depression's reward. No one was ever known to contract a cold or suffer ill effects during or just after his baptism, even though immersed in a river running ice, in coldest and most inclement weather. Hope, trust, love are at their highest at such times, and they cannot build a troubling body. Diaphragmatic breathing must be mentioned here in its relation to the diaphragm, solar plexus, and its connections. The movement of the diaphragm in inhalation and exhalation moves the solar plexus, causes it to be mas- saged. This arouses the whole sympathetic nerve system to do its best work. More oxy- gen flows in. The mind is quickly strength- ened, blues depart, despondency vanishes. This is often called " waking the solar plexus." Kib breathing does not wake it. Whenever per- turbed in any way in mind, go to breathing THE NERVE SYSTEM 81 diaphragmatically, cheerfully, and " work miracles " by law. Laughter shakes the dia- phragm and the solar plexus, all its ramifica- tions, all the viscera, and it is health. How often one sees children, in school or anywhere, pat with the hand over or in front of the solar plexus when some very delightful event is about to occur of which they have been told. There are plexuses of nerves in the pelvic region, in the stomach, heart, lungs, liver, and other organs. These are all inferior to the solar plexus as to consistency, power, complex- ity. The solar plexus, having a large centre of purely brain nervous matter, should prop- erly be called the abdominal brain. A plexus is chiefly a network of nerves. Irritations, dis- turbances in any part of the body, are reported to the abdominal brain through its everywhere present nerves. Here the report or vibra- tional shock is reorganized and sent all over the body through the sympathetic nerves. Where there is the most open nerve-channel or the least resistance, the worst effect will go and be felt, or the best effect, if the report from 82 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL the body to the abdominal brain is a good one. Disorder in the pelvic plexus or region may be reported directly through the vaso-motor nerves; the gangliated nerve-road, near the backbone, thence down the splanchnics, pneu- mogastric, and even by way of nerves in the sacral plexus, or by nerves near the cervical plexus to the solar plexus. All these channels are sympathetic nerves. If the resistance along the nerves leading to the stomach plexus is the least, nausea, vomiting, may result, or indigestion or gastritis, for the circulation of the blood to that organ would be very much diminished by the sympathetic nerves in the coatings of the blood-vessels. If the shock were very intense, severe paralysis of the reg- ulating nerves might occur, then more blood would go to the stomach, that is, too much, — a bleeding stomach does sometimes occur. If a person tried to remedy his stomach as such in this case, he would fail; the disturb- ance is in the pelvis somewhere, in some of its organs, — aim there. It is a wise diagnoser who makes no mistakes in such conditions. THE NERVE SYSTEM 83 The heart may palpitate and the cause be in the kidneys. The nose may be in trouble, the face pimpled, the voice changing, the throat sore, the head aching, and, owing to the omni- present sympathetic nerve system, the causes may be and usually are in some pelvic plexus ; or the stomach, liver, or some other organ is shocking, telephoning misery and overcoming the least resisting regions. To locate a disease physically is as difficult as to " find a needle in a haystack.' ' The sympathetic nerves in the second half of the colon that regulate the size of its blood- vessels in its coatings are in one definite plexus in connection with the solar plexus. This plexus will receive good or bad impulses from the solar plexus, according to its much or little resistance and the general and particular state of the body. In constipation this channel is very open for bad reports. If the message con- stricts the size of the blood-vessels through the nerves in their walls, then not enough blood would flow into that part of the colon, not suf- ficient juices could be formed out of the blood 84 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL to moisten the contents of the colon, and the retarded contents would have constipation, stoppage. The message might be so severe that nerve paralysis would ensue and too much blood would flow to the parts, and diarrhoea would exist. If these two states tend to alter- nate, then fermentation sets in and gases will be troublesome. There are other nerve-centres that assist in this work. These three troubles may follow each other by different quantities of the same quality of shock following each other. The subjective mind is doing all this, doing the best it can under its objective tutel- age. Of course, there may be lesions, mis- placements, causing constipation, or making it worse. An osteopath can remove a lesion more quickly than poised thought can, but let us have both, if needed, then, when well, stay well. Wrong emotional states are primarily behind constipation somewhere, somehow. If one will become more and more uniformly cheerful, pa- tient, pure, unselfish, fearless, poised, his con- stipation must become less and less and go out, for the objective mind will cure the subjective, THE NERVE SYSTEM 85 and it will, through the sympathetic nerve sys- tem permit, compel every function to approach normal, the lungs will do adequate breathing, the circulation will be rich and equable, suf- ficient digestive juices will be secreted, and the colon fecal matter will be mucosed and will move along with its usual rhythm of health. The writer has relieved constipation by exer- cises, breathing, oil, figs, water, and the like, but when the student gained this cheerful, fear- less mind poise, constipation went, disap- peared. What is true of constipation is true of any disease or disorder. " Thy faith hath made thee whole ' ' applies right here, — faith, principles of belief, thought and acted here all the time. A mind state that is uniformly cheer- fully poised is the faith kept, and the body, too, is made whole. " Go sin no more lest a worse thing come upon thee." Go back to negativity and pessimism of mind and the worst thing comes. If the reader thinks this quotation misapplied, let it be asked, How can anything higher and grander be attained than " a sound mind in a sound body? " " I beseech you, 86 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL therefore, brethren, by the mercies (laws) of God, that ye present your bodies a living sac- rifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' ' A person may eat sufficiently and yet have malnutrition, starvation in some organ or part of the body, from lack of oxygen, from con- stricted capillaries, arterioles, which cannot feed properly with blood the neglected part. When diagnosing any illness, disorder, dis- ease of one's own or that of another, ascertain the average emotional state, rectify the chemist mind at once, whatever else you may do as to medicine, climate, occupation, diet, getting among more agreeable people, and the like. If poison or an obstruction gets into the stomach, extra juices flow there to remove it, to make it less harmful, or the stomach may eject it through the mouth or force it through the intestines. The whole body unites to assist in restoring order; the conscious mind as such does not do this. Do you say " survival of the fittest " has brought about this method of ac- tion or reflex action and the like? Behind all, THE NEKVE SYSTEM 87 within all is the chemist, subconscious, wise- directing mind. Educate the mind in all poise and use the body apparatus well, as is every one's privilege. It means that attention must be pleasantly given to reform, if it is needed, and who does not need a bit morel The solar plexus was so named from its shape, suggesting the sun and its solar rays. It may signify its sun or solar relation to the body. The sun causes the earth to have its light, heat, growth, life, too much or too little. It is at least the channel for such results or phenomena. The solar plexus and its connec- tions, in a similar way, are at least the chan- nels whereby warmth, growth, life, too much or too little, exist in all parts of the body. The Infinite energy acts from sun to earth, the specialized subjective and objective mind acts from bodily centre to circumference. It is helpful to dwell on this comparison. The following relation of nerve systems and conscious and subconscious minds may be in- teresting and serviceable: The federal government may represent the 88 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL cerebrospinal nerve system, its muscles, and the objective mind; the state government may represent the solar plexus or abdominal brain, the nerves and ganglia leading out, and the subjective mind; the city and town govern- ment may represent the various organs, plex- uses, and subjective mind. There can be a civil war, distracted conscious mind; state se- cession or insubordination, undisciplined solar plexus and subjective mind; city and town non- submission, badly affected organ plexuses, poor subjective education. Each trouble affects all departments. There could not be a federal government (conscious mind) without states, cities, and towns. A poised federal head gives strength to state and town, and they in turn help to make a mighty nation. It is not intended to delegate the mind to two places, cranial and abdominal brains. Mind is in every atom of the body. It is often said that the left hand is nearer the heart than the right hand is. That is true as to the heart as a pumping organ, but not true when heart means feeling, character, as in " His head and THE NERVE SYSTEM 89 heart are both right." The solar plexus is the centre of feeling, character, habit, instinct, conscience. The left hand is no nearer this heart than the right hand is. There are many references in the Bible to the abdominal brain or solar plexus under these names: kidneys or reins, hidden parts, inmost parts of the belly, bowels of compas- sion, heart. From these references one can readily realize that the Bible writers believed that in the region of the solar plexus abode truth, affection, inspiration, judgment, fear, sorrow, joy, peace, strength, weakness, health, motive force. E.g. " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." * ' Examine me, Jehovah, and prove me and refine my reins and my heart." " The breath of man is the lamp of Jeho- vah searching all the inward parts of the belly." " Thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom." " When I heard, my belly trembled." 90 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL " Yea, my reins shall exult when thy lips speak right things." " Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins." " My reins also instruct me in the night season." 1 ' Bemember, Jehovah, thy bowels and thy lovingkindness. ' ' " Thy law is within my bowels.' ' " For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." 11 But whoso hath this world's goods and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? " " I am full of words, the breath within me (the spirit of my belly) constraineth me." " All the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and the hearts." Control the solar plexus and you control the whole organization, mental and physical, for a mighty work now and hereafter. The writer of the ninety-first Psalm evi- dently believed in aura. The halo given by THE NERVE SYSTEM 91 artists to Jesus and the saints indicate the same belief. The theosophist represents it as ellipsoidal or egg-shaped, with the more phys- ical man at the centre. This may be the astral body. One's magnetic presence is aura. Vi- bration of some sort goes from everybody. This is aura. Experiments with an electro- magnetic instrument prove that an electric aura surrounds every one to a certain dis- tance, perhaps nine feet away. A person's changing emotions are registered by the instru- ment unattached to the sitter. A negative thought sends the index to the negative side, a positive thought to the positive side. Any quality of emotional thinking in the conscious mind is put into every cell of the body through the subjective mind's work in the sympathetic nerve system, and the electric condition is thus registered. When one thinks consciously, the results are laid away in the subconscious mind. This is self-suggestion, auto-suggestion, without defi- nite intention. One may consciously auto-sug- gest to himself, and this is perhaps more pow- 92 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL erful; it is purposeful. We are all practising self-suggestion, whether we know it or not. This process may produce a good or bad result. It is a mode of vibration. Thought is a mode of vibration. The universe is one energy of potential vibrations of different rates, whether called physical, mental, or spiritual. When one acts on the conscious mind of an- other, he is using, in a general way, suggestion, whether it is done by look, gesture, or any means of communication, usually in the pres- ence of the recipient. This suggestion is laid away in the receiver's subjective mind by his own self-suggestion, for good or bad on the whole being. The suggestion may act directly on the subconscious mind, it welling up into the conscious. Every one is thus in one way or another suggesting to every one with whom he is in contact. All are practising it, consciously or unconsciously. When consciously per- formed, it perhaps is more resultful. Hyp- notization in a general sense comes under this mode of vibration. All we do and think affects the whole uni- THE NERVE SYSTEM 93 verse near and far. When we think of the vibrations as acting at or from a distance, it may be called telepathy, telesthesia. Every person, every tree, every rock, every star, every atom in the universe is vibrating or telepathing to all other existences, and they are being vi- brated upon or telepathed to, and the state of existence of any entity at any time is the total result of vibrations. There is law in all this without the " shadow of turning.' ' " Mind and purpose ride on matter to the last atom." " In him we live, move, and have our being.' ' This telepathy may have a good or bad influ- ence; it depends on how the vibration is met. This influence becomes a suggestion, and it is auto-suggested into the subjective mind, and hence the body. Or the total telepathic influ- ence may influence for bad or good directly the subconscious mind and health. In telesthesia we all are causing others to receive certain impressions, feelings, clairvoy- ant messages, and they similarly to us. It is held by some to be necessary for the soul to leave the body, as in sleep, and visit a dis- 94 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL tant place in order to get knowledge of events in that place. This does not seem unifyingly scientific. We receive knowledge through the eye from the sun, millions of miles away. It is not necessary to visit the sun to get knowl- edge from it or of it. There is a general sense whereby one re- ceives impressions, knowledge. The lowest animals have it well developed. Clairvoyance, news from the discarnate possibly, may be received by all who can respond or be receptive to the particular vibration in a way similar to our receiving vibrations through the specialized senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Prayer acts along the same lines of vibra- tion, telepathy, suggestion, self-suggestion. "We impress our desires on, upon the universal energy, God, in the midst of whom we are. We receive exactly the same kind of influence we send out. " Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire, That trembles in the breast." THE 1STEEVE SYSTEM 95 i ' As we sow so shall we reap. ' ' Vibration, motion, is -universal. Energy is expressed by differing vibrations in differing media. A rock as a whole vibrates, all its atoms have motion ; so with the earth, air, man, the light-bearing electric ether. Still water, when a stone is dropped into it, ripples in ever enlarging circles from the centre of disturb- ance. The water as a whole does not go or move from the centre. Its consistency con- denses and rarefies, and thus makes mostly an up and down motion, and a chip on the ripple does not move out, but up and down. It is so with air, so with the light and electric ether, and so with mind vibration in whatever medium or energy it vibrates. Wireless telegraphy motions the ether, gives and receives the vibrations from the sending voice to the receiving ear. The tympanum of the ear, a solid, transfers by vibration. There is wired telegraphic vibration, there is the same vibration wireless, unconfined. Thought is wireless, unconfined. Thought transference is a scientific fact. Personal experience convinces 96 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL and gives faith. A question was privately written on his own prepared paper, folded, put into the pocket, thought on several times. The mind-reader, the receiver, the receptive sensi- tive mind, was thirty feet away, excluded from sight. The name and a question of seven words were answered by voice to the writer. The thought vibration aroused in his mind and brain went through the appropriate medium into the receiver's mind, where it was trans- lated. Vibrate one of two tuning-forks placed near each other, the other will take on the vibration, the two forks being in the same key. Action and reaction will develop a loud tone. Each gives and receives. This is by air vibration. Two brains and two minds in a connecting medium act and react on each other. The mole- cules in one brain vibrating, a definite thought goes forth, vibrating the ether until the other brain and mind are similarly vibrated, that is, exactly as the first mind and brain vibrated. Thought has been transferred. A mother in America, a daughter in Europe THE NERVE SYSTEM 97 have the same spells of health and non-health at the same times. Cold, headache, indigestion, depression, elation, simultaneous each in both. The universe is vibration. There is one law of influence, cause and effect. There are vari- ous views about this law, but at bottom is sin- gleness, simplicity, unity, equivalency. Gravi- tation, heat, chemic action, electricity, thought, " One Lord (law), one faith, one baptism.' ' Physicality, mentality, morality, spirituality are vibrations of different quantity, dimension, quality, in the infinite ether and energy of " God with us.' ' A very despondent person, uniformly so, sit- ting in one room, often changes the emotional state of a person in an adjoining room from cheerfulness to sadness, neither knowing of the near presence of the other. The one affected sadly, complaining of distress, has been imme- diately relieved by removing the uniformly despondent person and having a light, cheery person take his place. It might happen that number two would affect number one favor- ably. This would depend on the greater 98 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL strength of the two influences. We are all " wireless telegraphy " transmitters and re- ceivers, more or less in order or out of or- der. The reader may dislike this practical view of matters, physical, mental, and spiritual. It was a troublesome problem to another until he saw that " The truth shall make you free." Ac- cept scientific results as God knowledge; use it for the highest development of all, whether it is what we believed when younger or did not believe. " Be ye transformed by the renew- ing of your minds.' ' " Be able to give a rea- son for the hope that is in you. ,, " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ' ' A receptive person by suggestion or hyp- notization may have an inflammation come to a certain place on his body, or, having one, it will disappear. Here is vibratory mind power over its body-building, through the sympathetic nerve system, using the blood which is made out of what one breathes and eats. A person dreams that in an accident he is THE NEEVE SYSTEM 99 bruised. He awakes from his nightmare and finds he is bruised. One awakes stiffened with a cold, having gone to bed feeling well. The subjective, building, chemic mind works night and day just as it feels, and it feels as its pre- vious education permits it to feel. A nightmare means that there have been day-mares, too. We are all affecting ourselves in similar ways, in varying degrees, whether we know it or believe it. Thought must press out or express itself, phenomenize poorly or well. Let us awake to the law that we cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon. Night thoughts in general fol- low or represent day thoughts. It is interesting to note how the ways of transference have opened up from slower to faster, lower to higher. Long time ago one had to go in person to his business if he would succeed. Later he sent a representative, then a letter, then a telegram, a telephone, a wire- less message, finally a mind despatch is here. The future will give us undreamed-of power through vibratory law and its science and art. 100 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Scientific prayer, universal communication will be the culmination. How thought was vibrated, phenomenized, expressed, when the Eternal felt : l ' Let there be light and there was light." In wondrous ways, but lesser, we see the same among men : Let there be an ocean cable, and there was an ocean cable; let there be an Alpine tunnel, a subway, and they were. Electric light and mes- sages are bidden and they come. Soon it shall be : Let there be peace, harmony, health omni- present. Let us awake to the consciousness of infinite, loving law, God, and use it and obey him. " So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it." A finger-nail is made out of what we eat and breathe, by the chemist, subjective mind. It depends on the nature of that mind whether it will be a good finger-nail or a bad one. All the chemical stages the food and oxygen go THE NERVE SYSTEM 101 through in order to become nail are better or worse, as the builder is better or worse. Stigmata are built into the physical by strong mind impression. Our strongest athlete is hyp- notized to lift a fifty-pound dumb-bell; a five- hundred-pound dumb-bell is there. He tosses up easily the supposed fifty pounds. He is given fifty pounds to lift. He is hypnotized to lift it as five hundred pounds. With great difficulty he poorly succeeds. He had large muscle, but that did not count as compared with the mind that uses the nerve and muscle. Natives of India, Japan, and the South Sea Islands walk with bare feet for some rods over white-hot stones, and burning does not take place. The chemistry within overrides the chemistry without. A lady at twenty-one years of age suddenly changes from an ill and despondent person from birth into a well and glad condition. The cause of this need not be dwelt upon. Whether it was obsession or lack of unification of mind on its way, in the race, from a colonial condi- tion, striving, idealizing for unity, or some- 102 HEALTH THROUGH SELF - CONTROL thing else, it proves the law of vibration, thought to be almighty. The mentality changed, the physicality changed. The reader knows how a noted physician here and there occasionally brings back the mind that has left or is leaving the body, by vibrating grandly on the departing soul. By commanding, encouraging, holding out duty, possibility, power to the departing one, the soul is vibrated into decision, strength, desire, and it returns, assumes body control and lives here. These dying times are the most impression- able times for good or bad results. What mis- takes some mothers, fathers, relatives, friends make when they feel sad, weep, pity, despond, give up all hope at death-bedsides. They may cause the death of the sick ones. The physi- cian may be the only one who is poised, but he is only one good influence among many bad ones. Such times should especially be times of hope, cheer, poise, grandeur, love, in voice, look, gesture, carriage, mind. A mother can save her child or cause its death. The custom some so-called savage or heathen THE 'NEKVE SYSTEM 103 nations have of making certain noises to drive away the approaching death spirit often suc- ceeds in restoring the sick. We are civilized, but we are worse off than the savages, surely, in some respects. Cancer is a certain abnormal chemic-build- ing of breath and food into tissue. If all the mind, the subjective, building mind can be made whole, it can immediately build whole tissue out of food and oxygen, and the cancer ceases to be cancer. Leprosy has disappeared by the same process. It is, so far as the physical is concerned, poor, deficient chemistry work in the body's laboratories. If the breathing is adequate, the food efficient, and the mind, the builder, is conscious of its God-given power, results equally grand in tissue-building must follow. The body is a great chemical and elec- trical laboratory (millions of them) wherein products of many kinds are being elaborated from what is eaten and breathed. Saliva, mucus, bile, the gastric, pancreatic, intestinal juices, various salts, acids, bases, various anal- yses and syntheses of all these to get just the 104 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL right ingredient for each tissue, each organ, each function, are some of the working results of the subjective mind in the body by which body-building takes place. When the factors, thinking, breathing, eating, are normal, the chemistry is normal, but weaken the first or any one of them and you weaken all the results. To think health, wholeness, wholesomeness, holiness, is to get it, keep it, give it to mind and body, and to radiate it everywhere. Love in the life best augments the vital functions. To think disease, unease, weakness, is to in- duce it or increase it in mind and body, and to have a weakening influence everywhere. Hatred in the life is the greatest injurer of the vital functions. All this comes about by the law of the effect of the emotions on the body through the sym- pathetic nerve system, building the body as the emotions demand, positively, optimistic- ally, rightly or negatively, pessimistically, wrongly. The moral law is in the very cell- building of our bodies. One's finger-nail is THE NEKVE SYSTEM 105 moral or immoral. The universe is moral. Good thinking gives good products, phenome- nizes, expresses well; bad thinking gives bad products, phenomenizes, expresses badly. It would be a topsy-turvy, impossible uni- verse otherwise. If sad thinking produced the best results, and glad thinking produced the worst results, — but then sadness would be gladness, and gladness sadness. There could be no working out a salvation on such a criss- cross plan. It is not what we theorize on, and admire, and approve of as having happened in the past by this or that person, nor is it what we expect may happen in the future, but it is what we are accomplishing now in our own time and life of good in every direction that works out individual and universal salvation, health from man's point of view, to the universe. " It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishment the scroU ; I am master of my fate, I am captain of my soul." CHAPTER V INHIBITION — HOW HABITS, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS, OPINIONS, ACTS, MAY PRODUCE HEALTH When a certain thought is inhibited, it is dismissed from the mind, or kept out of it. Since there are emotional thoughts of such a character that they would wreck one if he in- dulged in them, it is wise, if he wishes to win salvation, to learn, as a habit, to inhibit. " Sow a thought and reap a tendency, sow a tendency and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a character, sow a character and reap an eter- nity,' ' right or wrong. To train our subjective mind well, we must train our objective mind well, thus " pressing the button,' ' the eternal laws will do the rest and the best. Right thinking consumes oxygen, food, blood, protoplasm, but wrong thinking consumes much more; the laws of chemical 106 INHIBITION 107 and electrical combustion distinguish between good and bad. The burden of this law is light when the thoughts are right. If we change this energy from a wrong use to a right use, we transmute, save ourselves. We overcome evil with good, or bring evil over to good. When one listens to laughter, he feels better. If he hears, sees, writes, or speaks the word, laughter, he feels better in some particular, though it may be only a little. This comes about by the " law of the association of ideas. " In the human race the sound of laughter is woven into gladness. To hear laughter or to laugh mechanically, even, will bring glad- ness. Mental laughter will arouse physical laughter, physical laughter will arouse mental laughter. If you hear the cry of a suffering babe, you immediately feel bad. Seeing the word, speaking, writing it, exerts some bad effect by the ' ' law of the association of ideas. ' ' If one has learned to inhibit strongly and im- mediately, of course the bad effect is slight. Hearing or seeing the word nausea causes sick- ness in some persons. The word, home, if it 108 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL has pleasant memories, is healthful even to hear; if unpleasant memories are associated with it, then its sound is unhealthful, unless inhibition immediately takes place, or unless an intellective state of mind is assumed. Cer- tain scenes by association may make us ill or better. Tones of voice of those loved or feared affect one quite differently. One falls from a staging or cliff by being unable to inhibit the thought or imaging the falling, which thought incipiently at least com- pels his muscles to go through the acts that take place when one does fall. Mind immedi- ately placed on some other subject is the only safe thing to do then. To look upon some thick, warm blankets in a store on a warm day in August does not arouse as healthful a state of mind as to see those same blankets on a cold day in December. A bargain day for blankets in August might lessen the negative effect. Imitating, yawning, gaping, hustle, hurry, advertising cause many to do as others do or wish, largely by this " association of ideas " law. Keep an adver- INHIBITION 109 tisement before the people long enough, often enough, and many who at first cannot endure to look at it, in time go and purchase. With all our experiences of the ^ve special senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, we are much bound by this law. A gentleman has the stuttering habit. He tries to inhibit the consciousness of it. He hears his father's voice as he did when a boy: " Don't stutter; stop it." The harsh tone is in it, and he not only stutters, but sets his jaw as he did when young. " The father though dead yet speaketh." All sounds, scenes, odors, taste, touch sensations, by the association of ideas with the experiences brought about in this life or inherited, arouse in the mind associated memories that affect favorably or unfavor- ably the breathing, the circulation of the blood, its purity, the magnetic condition, every organ and its function, every cell in the body, so that one's health, total health, threefold develop- ment, physical, mental, and spiritual, will be favorably or unfavorably affected. The person who learns best to inhibit the 110 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL harmful thoughts and associations, and to wel- come and retain the helpful ways of thinking and allied memories, and makes cheerfulness, courage, peace, harmony a glad habit, is of more use to the world and himself, lives a larger life, a longer life than he could having no such habit of inhibition. If time did not weaken somewhat the asso- ciative power of words, health would be almost normal in a certain city in New England whose name and many of its street names all have beautiful, hopeful, harmonious associations. Its citizens can feel that they are in the ' ' hands of Providence,' ' and that in their names of the streets they are in the midst of Peace, Plenty, Benevolence, Friendship, Eden, Joy, Hope, Benefit, Patience, Union, that a Gay, Pleasant, Friend is always near, even an Angel (Angell) and a St. John. How different the associations for one resid- ing in a Tombstone, a Waterloo, a Hurricane, a Battle Creek, an Ashville, a Cripple Creek, or in a " Home for Incurables/ ' One may say that these results are so small that they are INHIBITION 111 not worth considering, but this cannot be so. During twenty-four hours the few seconds here, minutes there, of negative thinking and acting amount to much loss of oxygen, generating much waste and toxin in the blood, bringing about irregular circulation, bacterial increase, negative electric condition, disease, weakness, and maybe death. The law is law in little, law in much. No one should dread this prin- ciple of absolute cause and effect. It works just as mightily for good results as for bad. Because we know a hot stove will burn us is not a reason why we should dread or fear it. We use forethought, not fear-thought. All law works in two directions. A thermometer ten degrees below zero indicates freezing for us; 212 above, boiling for us. One law of vibration, innocent but harmful or helpful, according to our relation to it. This practical omnipresent law of good results and bad results flowing from the emotions can be as effectual for hu- manity and more effectual on account of its omnipresence than Lazarus 's request of Abra- ham, — ' ' but if some one would go to them 112 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL from the dead, they would change their minds. ' ' The reaction of a depleted negative body on the mind is to be avoided, as well as the weak mind's action on it, if we desire, seek whole- ness, success. There are at least two ways of inhibiting wrong thinking to free ourselves from injuri- ous results. One way is inhibition by negation or repression. A person discovers that sadness is an unwise state of mind, and he declares: " I will not be sad." " I am not sad." This is a denial, a negation, a repression with the mind much on sadness, much affected by the associative power of the word sad. He incipi- ently, at least, goes through the mental and physical experiences of some former sadness; it works mightily subconsciously. The whole statement is negative, and in a way the general declaration loses much of its good effect by the antagonistic word sad. The declarer almost compels himself to dwell on the thought he wishes to put away from him. There is a strug- gle between the whole and its parts. A habit of conversing and thinking in this manner does INHIBITION 113 affect badly or less kindly the whole organism, in the five or more ways that have been ex- plained. Bodily reaction here is also harmful on the mind, or at least it cannot be of much assistance. Many negative indulgences during the day and dreams during the night may make the difference between buoyancy and discour- agement, health and non-health. The law does not excuse. " God is the same yesterday, to- day, and forever.' ' The intention in these denials, negations, re- pressions is good, and some helpful results may follow, but there is a better way of inhibiting, viz., inhibition by substitution. Under similar circumstances the person declares, " I will be cheerful, I am cheerful." This is an affirma- tion, a substitution. The whole statement and the word cheerful strengthen each other. The associative memories of the word cheerful put one into the states of mind and body he was in in some former experience while cheerful. There may be a hint in the mind that cheerful has an opposite, sad, but the psychological dif- ference between inhibition by negation and in- 114 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTROL hibition by substitution as a habit of life is so great that it may make the difference of a long, wholesome life and a short, unwholesome life. The thought the reverse of the one we wish to get rid of is dwelt on. There is no dispute, argument, there is agreement, peace. The sub- stitution may be any helpful thought or one the opposite of the troublesome one, as sub- stituting gladness for sadness, and so on. Com- pare: " There is no sin, there is no sickness, there is no death " with " All is good, all is health, all is life." Also, " I love sincerity " with " I hate insincerity; and, " Looking up at the stars I was ashamed of my impurity " with * ' Looking up at the stars I was glad to be pure." It is very healthful to form a habit of speak- ing and thinking in positively worded sentences wherever possible, yet the writer is here using much negative language. It seems necessary to do so in explaining laws. There are some- times situations that cannot be met by substi- tution, at least in form. It is well to think on what we wish to be INHIBITION 115 and do, or wish others to be and do, and not on what we do not wish to be and do, or wish others not to be and do. Here is the ladder of betterment : I am sad, I do not wish to be sad, I am not sad, I wish to be cheerful, I am cheer- ful. These good or bad effects upon ourselves, from different habits of inhibiting harmful thoughts and conversation, are the least part of the results. Think how we can make others sick or well by our negative or positive, our repressing or substitutional thought and talk habits. Let us take a little survey of the conversa- tion, the talk, the speech in music, on the stage, at home, in church, of the art works on the walls, the books we read, the schools we attend, of the tones of voice used, the looks, gestures, acts performed, and note the negativity, pessi- mism, repression, and the positivity, optimism, substitution of it all, to see its effects on our welfare, others' welfare, the health of all, the wholeness of all, that we may get an uplift into a fuller, more successful life for one and all. Conversation and all expression are regulated 116 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL by the emotions as to negation and substitution qualities. Conversation in the widest sense affects the health just as the emotion does that underlies it, the health of the performer and the hearers. All are teachers and all are taught, whether in the home, in the school, in the business world, or elsewhere. All are influencing all and being influenced by all for better or for worse. The writer's varied experience in the school field leads him to survey that department to present some helpful results. He has spent all his life, in a way, in his home or the homes of others, so he must look there, too, for good lessons. The observations made on the schools apply equally well to the homes, the parents, the busi- ness managers, employers, and to everybody in fact. The unwise teacher in the schoolroom with her pupils negates and represses them by her ways and methods, her disposition. She inhibits with herself and with her pupils, but not in the better way. She means well, thinks, if she thinks, that her way is the only way to educate and develop them. INHIBITION 117 The wise teacher inhibits with herself and hence with her pupils by substitution. The negating pessimistic teacher discourages, nags, scolds, finds fault. The substitutional, positive, optimistic teacher encourages, suggests, judi- ciously praises, commends. A fire-engine and its accompaniments go by the schoolroom of the negative teacher. The pupils all look out the window. The teacher loudly commands them: " Don't look out of the window. Didn 't you ever see an engine before ? Look at your books. Why don't you study? You will never be promoted, never will reach the high school. I am ashamed of you. What makes you act so? Haven't I told you time and again not to look out the window? " The children sullenly turn to their books with dulled mind, sinking solar plexus, depressed breath- ing, and all that goes with these. A fire-engine passes the room of the opti- mistic teacher. The pupils would not desire to look out the window, but let us suppose that they will look out. The wise teacher simply makes the class work so attractive by the reci- 118 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL tation, board work, apt anecdote, that soon all are deeply interested in their work, not even realizing they have been drawn away from or prevented from looking at the engine. They are happy, breathing well, minds clear, and all the good results that follow are theirs. Think how differently the pupils feel toward the one teacher and the other. It is a difference of a health and a non-health tendency. How aptly a philosopher has written that he cared not so much what his child studied as under whom he studied. The presence of the depressing teacher in one room tends to prevent the pupil from getting promotion to the next grade and high school by the weakening effect that such treatment has on the body and mentality of the student ; while the strengthening effect that the poised teacher in the other room has on the mentality of her pupils ensures their pro- motion. In the latter case energy is success- fully used, in the other the same energy or more is misused. One teacher is always solemn, keen-eyed, watching, looking for discipline, the other is ever cheerful, interesting, interested, INHIBITION 119 courageous, inspiring. The pupils are driven by one, attracted by the other. During calis- thenics, in one room is gloom, a sternness, a don't - dare - to - make - a - mistake, stay - after-school look; in the other room gladness, loving activity. One says, " Don't walk so noisily," the other, " Walk softly," or no words are used, for ex- ample in this room is stronger than precept. Here are a number of directions heard in the schoolroom, negatively and positively put, but in the peaceful, happy rooms neither form would be heard, as l ' The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive " reigns there. The tones of the teachers' voices will so differ that one wounds, the other heals, strengthens : Do not be a bad boy. Be a good boy. Do not be late to school. Be on time. Don't tell a falsehood. Tell the truth. Don't get your feet wet. Keep your feet dry. 120 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL Don't walk home in the rain. Eide to-day. Don't forget my errand. Remember my errand. Don't fail as usual in your examination to- day. Now, make a success of it. " Keep your feet dry " in the home and the school should be associated with health, strength, happiness. All the practical^ physi- ology needed can be taught in this way. One experience shows the boy that wet feet in the wrong way, at the wrong time, do not tend to make him happier or stronger. Pores, nerves, circulation, and how the bad effects come about, and hence that there is a wrong way and a right way to get the feet wet, become known by re- sults. Allow him, encourage him to explore the water with rubber boots on and in undress in suitable weather. If a boy is allowed to be natural, to know why dry feet in some cases are better than wet ones, he will need less and less teaching, he will be his own reasoner, di- rector, teacher. INHIBITION 121 Just as a business man would not knowingly do an act to make himself worse off, so can chil- dren be educated to prefer the way that is bet- ter for them, but " Do not get your feet wet, if you do I'll punish you." " Why can't I get my feet wet, mamma? " " Because I tell you not to," is not educative nor healthful, but un- educative and unhealthful. It may seem to be a short cut in duty and time. In the same way the young can be led to see that to tell the truth is better for their health and happiness than to tell a falsehood. All the physiology and psychology needed could be interestingly ac- quired while they were experimenting. Show a boy in loveliness how falsehood, then shyness, slyness, tenseness, reduce his strength, his prog- ress, his happiness, and he will work out his own salvation. His reason in these things is neglected till late in life, then he is at a great disadvantage. Habits are set. We can early lay the foundation for right and wrong ever associated with good and bad results, and rea- sonable men in all things will be the result, in business, in society, in religion. Health will 122 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL follow, threefold, physical, mental, and spir- itual. The writer knows some teachers who have saved boys by getting them to realize that tell- ing falsehoods made them really less happy, and thus their strength and growth were badly affected, but they first made them realize how much better they felt and were by being always truthful. Falsehood is wrong because all re- sults of it are really less desirable, health included; truth-telling is right because all re- sults of it are more desirable, including health. This is provable to the young, by the young. The universe is reasonable, moral on just grounds. Proving these things would bring in mind study, nerve system, circulation of the blood, their relations to each other, the results of their relations, a natural education, unfold- ing into larger, more reasonable, and more loving conceptions of God. It is remembered how different the results were, as compared in two different school- rooms, one presided over by a negative teacher, the other by a positive teacher. The same INHIBITION 123 boys and girls who under one teacher one year were very polite, fond of school work, out little on account of illness, well promoted, bright, happy, had no friction; the next year in an- other room, under a negative teacher, were rude, disliked school work, were absent much from school on account of illness, poorly pro- moted, had friction, were dull, sad. Parents used to wonder why their children showed such marked difference during two years. Now add the impure air of the schoolroom to the effect a repressing teacher thus has on her pupils by her arousal of negative emotions in her chil- dren, which emotions injure their health in so many ways, threefold, through the subjective mind and the sympathetic nerve system, — and you have partly at least the cause why diseases like scarlet fever develop in some schools. It is remembered how the school diseases devel- oped more in the negative teachers ' rooms than in the positive teachers' rooms. The negative teacher was oftener absent from school than the positive teacher on account of colds and the like. 124 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL Think of the effect a loving, inspiring teacher has on the health of her pupils, through these emotional laws, during ^ve or six hours per day of happiness instead of discouragement and dislike. Health is thus invited. Teachers should be chosen for their poise, their love for boys and girls, for their investi- gating spirit. In which teacher's room is a ferule found? All this applies to parents, every one who lives, associates with another. Seven hundred forty-seven children in Ger- many committed suicide during fourteen years, just before the autumn school openings. Why? The hard, unadapted studies, poor air, harsh, negative teachers, corporal punishment in school and at home duplicated, contrasted with the freedom, happiness, good air of the vaca- tion, led them to prefer to die. Doubtless none of these children were much under the super- vision of the poised, substitutionary inhibiting teachers. Statistics of the schools in cities and towns in our own vicinity often show that during May and June more diseases develop than dur- INHIBITION 125 ing the July and August vacation, when free- dom, good air, no fear, permit good breathing and all that is healthful, so that the diseases disappear, but in September, housed in school- rooms and all that may go with that, develop disease in a very noticeable way. There are many cases of personal observa- tions of the truth of these dire effects of wrong emotional and mental atmosphere. A mother relates that one year her daugh- ter dreaded school, disliked her teacher, learned indifferently, enjoyed her home but little, had little appetite, much indigestion, headaches. Going into another schoolroom the next year under a bright, cheerful, loving teacher, the daughter immediately loved her school, did bet- ter work, was happy at home, well. Recently in a near-by large city a boy was not promoted at mid-year with his class. He was ridiculed for his inefficiency, and almost immediately fell off his seat, dead. The mind shock from the solar plexus to the heart, in the heart plexus, paralyzed, broke its rhythm, stopped its beating. 126 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL It is said that the good die young. This can- not be true. The emotional die young, those who cry easily, laugh easily, fret easily, have their feelings hurt easily, weaken and die. The poised, the steady, the uniformly cheerful, can- not help but live longer. Blessed is the one who has learned (or was so born) not to be cast down, not to feel bad at the solar plexus, for he has all the elements of strength and life. How often a child's death is attributed to bad water, bad food, when the underlying cause is the atmosphere of the home, not the air only. If parents could be substitutional, positive, op- timistic, uniformly hopeful, courageous, sin- cere, pure with the child, there would be more life and longer life, not only with the children but with the parents. " Example is stronger than precept.' ' If a parent wishes to be able to bring up a child in the way he should go, he must go that way himself all the time, and when both are old they will not depart from that way. Demanding politeness, perfection from chil- dren and others, and neither showing nor liv- INHIBITION 127 ing them, is double failure. How often it hap- pens that a parent, teacher, guardian, punishes one under his charge in an angry, fretful, re- vengeful way, for having shown these same fretful, angry revengeful tendencies. This is the old tit-for-tat way of reform, which does not reform. It is not the " overcome evil with good " method. " Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him ; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." If this were the key-note of society, harmony and health would increase. Take advantage of the child's human nature, not to ruffle it, but to smooth it, draw forth energy to be used for strength of body, mind, and its spiritual devel- opment. The " adversary " is the oppositional nature in the child. To oppose it with a like disposition is to increase it. To " agree " with it is to lessen it. While with the child, our refined disposition should draw forth from him 128 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL approval, trust, attraction, glad obedience, vir- tue. The " adversary " turns the oppositional, negative, pessimistic parent to the judge, the judge to the officer, then to prison. The oppo- sitional factor has been so powerful that all poise and love are lost, the " better nature " is imprisoned, is "useless. The prisoner can only escape from prison by transmuting his energy, by overcoming evil with good, by being lovingly reasonable with child and all. Every parent who demands perfection of act and thought from child, demands that which he himself does not live. We can at least be sin- cere, and not pose as perfect. It would help many a parent if the child were wise and brave enough to say, when corrected with so much assumed exemplary life, " Did you ever do wrong, papa f ' ' — especially helpful if the par- ent would receive this balancing gladly, and try to show the son and daughter that he was sympathizing with, loving them, and they him, all for practical natural development. Should a parent be respected by a son because he is his father, or because he is so wise, just, prac- INHIBITION 129 tical, that the son cannot do otherwise than respect him? To demand respect is to lose it, to earn it is godlike. To try to force a son to respect his parent is to prove that the father has not shown respect to the son, and that he has not lived the life he orders his son to live. The tenseness with which parents and teach- ers seem to think they mnst act, destroys life, theirs and that of the young. Tenseness in mind is tenseness in body and vice versa. This means immediately irregular and slight blood circulation, and all the usual bad results fol- lowing. A father was busy writing. His little son was near by, building with blocks. He was with great joy scanning his finished structure. The father, in going to the bookcase, inadvertently with his foot knocked the structure down. " Oh, father! " cried the child in distress. " Well, what do you have those rattletraps right in my way for? Take them right out of here." Later the mother found the child, si- lent, in tears. Afterward in his architect life he could never look at a finished structure with- 130 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL out reexperiencing the effect of his father's careless act and lack of sympathy. Doubtless he would have succeeded much better as an architect and in other ways if his father had been, on that $nd all other occasions, a perfect gentleman to the son. Arouse these depressing emotions all through the young life, and you kill the growing man by inches, physically, mentally, and spiritually. How grandly would the father have helped to build the boy if he had beautifully excused himself to his son, cheerfully promising to be more thoughtful next time, at the same time helping the child to rebuild even a better structure. This would be character-building indeed! If there is wisdom in scolding a child, then it is a sensible performance to call a plant naughty, disobedient, when it will not blossom in a north window in winter, though it has suf- ficient warmth, moisture, and food. The child and the plant might both say: " Treat me as my nature demands, and I shall love to obey and blossom." Typhoid fever may develop with bacteria INHIBITION 131 taken into the system by drinking impure water. One son dies, the other son is not even ill. Both drank of the same water. One son may have been very emotional, not a favorite in the home, easily despondent, and jealous. Here all the results of the negative emotions would follow, and death has to take place. The other boy may have been less emotional, more favored by the parents, less easily upset in his mind, pretty uniformly cheerful, and all the benefits of the positive emotions would be at his service, and death could not occur. To see how much greater the effect the emo- tions have on health than simply some impure air, note this: A school building, whose ven- tilation was condemned by the State inspector, was reventilated at an expense of eight thou- sand dollars. The room pronounced at the in- spection to have the best draft, ventilation, in the building was occupied by a negative, scold- ing teacher. More illness occurred during the year in that room than in the room pronounced to have the poorest ventilation, which room was presided over by a glad, loving teacher. 132 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL It is wise for Boards of Health to do all pos- sible to prevent disease in the schoolroom, but the most powerful causes of disease are not gotten at. Add glad teachers, an adaptive cur- riculum, get at the parental atmosphere for op- timism. The following is good in its way, but the conscious fear and the subconscious, offset much of its good effect. School in 1950 Teacher (to a newly arrived pupil) — " Have you your vaccination certificate with you? " " Yes, sir." 1 ' Have you been inoculated against croup I ' ' " Yes, sir." " Have you been vaccinated with the cholera bacillus? " " Yes, sir." " Have you a written certificate that you have been made immune against whooping-cough, measles, and scarlatina? " " Yes, sir." " Have you brought your own drinking-vessel? " " Yes, sir." " Will you promise never to use the sponge and slate-pencil of your neighbor? " INHIBITION 133 " Yes, sir." " Are you willing that at least once every week all your books be thoroughly fumigated with sulphur, and your clothes be disinfected with mercuric bichloride? " " Yes, sir." " Very well, then; as you possess all the necessary protective measures prescribed by our modern hygienic requirements, you may mount over that wire enclosure and take yon- der isolated aluminum seat, and may begin your lessons." Bacteria will not develop any more rapidly than the deoxygenated lack of breathing system will permit. Sanitary laws and arrangements in all directions are desirable, but one may pine and die in perfect external sanitary conditions, even to a faultlessly clean body, with best of food. More attention should be given to the science and the art of the effects of the emo- tions in body-building. Many people of the happiest dispositions " live long and prosper " midst filth, while many of gloomy tendencies die early in life in perfectly healthful surround- ings. 134 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL In choosing a teacher (wife, husband, em- ployee, for that matter), select one who is a diaphragmatic breather, hence poised, cheerful, optimistic, positive, kindly disposed. Look not for a driller, disciplinarian, first. The best driller will be included in the good breather. Napoleon is said to have selected soldiers, when possible, by receiving only those with large, open nostrils, large breathers, at least, but probably they were more rib than diaphrag- matic breathers. Rib breathing is strenuous, strong, but exhausting, merciless at times. Often the curriculum in the school or the work and routine at home invite discipline, call out obstinacy. Calves, by instinct (inherited habits of pre- vious animal experience), will walk when the appropriate time arrives, without the mother cow's care, similarly birds will fly, chickens will run about. But the babe must be assisted, coaxed, forced to walk before the instinctive time can arrive, often attended with so many undesirable results. Psychologists tell us that if human babies for many generations could INHIBITION 135 have perfect freedom as to the walking time, they would do as well as the calves, rise and walk, wasting no time of mother or nurse. We force children in school to study numbers years before the brain-cells are instinctively formed or ready to assist the mind to act math- ematically. Stupidity, obstinacy, are shown by pupils thus forced against nature. The teacher is employed to get results. She drives. There is opposition, discipline, emotionally under- mined health of pupil and teacher, minds still less clear and strong for the difficult work. Oh, for a school director who can divine when each child can instinctively best begin each study ! This will bring the school millennium, and the earth's population will catch the spirit of it all. Some pupils at eleven years of age can happily and healthfully master more arith- metic in one year than they would unhappily and unhealthfully get by studying it from five years old to eleven. The kindergarten, in general, is doing a nat- ural, poising, happy, successful work, but some kindergartners are falling from grace and be- 136 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL coming fossilized, full of rules, mandatory. In the kindergarten, naturalness of action, inves- tigation, politeness, cheerfulness, kind-hearted- ness, are being emphasized by play, song, and work. What they repeat in thought and act soon becomes habit, character. They enact and think they are ' ' brave knights and true. ' ' One is what he thinks and acts. In a grand book on education, the author writes that now the parent says, when he finds his child not in health, " I must keep my boy from school to-day, as he is not feeling well." When naturalness, freedom, practicality, are in the educational system in school-work and schoolroom in the near future, the parent will say, " My boy isn't feeling very well to-day, so I must keep him in school." Emerson's writings are positive, optimistic, cheerful, substitutional, as in: " Nerve us with incessant affirmatives. Don't bark against the bad, but chant the beauties of the good." " Emerson loved the good and Carlyle hated INHIBITION 137 the bad, and the Carlylian most abounds to- day, ' ' and with its lack of health. St. Paul teaches inhibition by substitution, as in: " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good re- port; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things/ ' The mind subjectively is all the time building the body, just as it is influenced by the mind objectively acting upon it by self-suggestion, auto-suggestion, or every-day common think- ing. This conscious activity goes on about ten per cent, of the time in reality. The subjective condition is character, building power, habit, instinct, heredity, all results of our conscious thinking and that of those who have preceded us, whether negative or positive. It behooves us to use our conscious minds active ten per cent, of the time, grandly always, and register well. It is the pioneer judge. Wrong thinking will produce unhealthy bod- 138 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTKOL ily and mental results, and just as surely, no more, no less surely, right thinking will bring forth healthy bodily and mental results. ' ' Now is the day of salvation." Conscious emotional thinking is but dimly developed in the lower animals, yet the sub- jective mind and sympathetic nerve system results can be seen in the cow, dog, horse, in fact, in any animal. The cat does not con- sciously fear death, Hades, leaving mother, father, brothers, sisters, playmates, — when the dog is in pursuit, yet from " survival of the fittest " law, instinct, reflex action, the cat receives some results detected in less breath- ing, perturbed, interrupted circulation, poorer blood, toxins, weak muscles, unbalanced elec- tric condition, and shorter life. Man is very consciously emotional, and the results are much more intense. In this respect he may be worse off than the lower animals, but he has his conscious mind with which to ward off fear, if he can and will use it. The cow that has loving care bestowed on her is known to give more milk, richer cream, INHIBITION 139 to eat less, to breathe more, to behave better when let loose from the stable or into the road. The writer has watched results when the " hired man " was ugly, harsh, brutal to the cows. Notice such cows when he attempts to drive them through roads, byways, and high- ways into a pasturing field. Their heels are in air, fences are jumped, gardens and private fields are entered, reminding one of certain pupils coming out of certain school buildings. Of the cow and of any animal (including the human species), it can be said, " Their actions speak louder than words." " Love is the greatest thing in the world," whether applied to a man, child, cow, bird, dog. Love for the cow not only benefits the cow but it rewards the owner. A faithful, loving dog, lying beside his dead master, mourns him- self to death in an hour or two. Subjective mind and sympathetic nerve system work death as compelled by the conscious mourning mem- ory, even in the dog. If one can love animals all unconscious of the commercial reward, his health is heavenly. 140 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL One often wonders how he can awake in the morning ill, having retired the night before well. His conscious mind was out of business all the night. That chemist subjective mind, average of all previous experiences and ob- jective teaching, has built disease. A night- mare illustrates the condition of the sleeping mind. A nightmare mind builds a nightmare body. Even rib breathing begins when night- mare begins, the diaphragmatic action of peace- ful sleep ceasing. " Our own comes to us." The sequence of tones, different vibrations, or rarefactions and condensations of the air on the surface of the body, affect one nega- tively or positively. The deaf illustrate this best. The result of 1, 3, 5, sung or played is encouragement; the result of 6, 7, 8, is dis- couragingly beseeching. These results are ours by instinct, inheritance, law, education. Put dismal words to dismal tunes and you may so weaken some persons that disease is induced. The rule works both ways. The lullaby puts the babe to sleep, not by accident. There are no accidents. Baby knows not consciously the INHIBITION 141 association of the words or tones, but its soul responds to its lesson of eternity. If, when one's fingers are nearly exhausted, sad music be played, he cannot move them then. Let a grand strain be played, and immediately the fingers can easily be worked. This shows how quickly the emotions can act on the blood circulation, for better or for worse. The army is discouraged and flagging. The band sounds forth " The Star Spangled Ban- ner,' ' the soldiers are erect, and with new strength are grandly marching. Martial and rag-time music are excellent for warming cold feet and relieving headache. The incipient working of the foot and leg muscles, and the thought directed there, with the cheerful emotional effect upon the circu- lation, cause more blood to go to the lower limbs, drawing some from and sending less to the congested brain. A woman in the insane asylum was brought from her cell in a strait- jacket, violent, loud, cold, profane. A Chopin nocturne was played. She ceased her profanity, talked sensibly. A 142 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Beethoven adagio was played. Her pulse be- came full and strong. Then " Home, Sweet Home," and she became much less nervous, with skin warm, returning to her cell without her strait- jacket. The cell surroundings would increase at once the insaneness. There were twelve patients in a hospital, eleven Americans and one Scotchman. The house physician informed the visiting clergy- man that the eleven Americans were improv- ing so rapidly that they would be discharged in a day or two, but that the Scotchman way sinking rapidly and might die any minute. A week afterward, the report received by the clergyman was that the Scotchman was well and had been discharged, and that the eleven Americans were dead and buried. It was learned that the Scotchman asked for a High- lander and his bagpipes. The arousing old airs of his native land and the musical instru- ment of his boyhood and his ancestors so stirred him emotionally on the positive, sub- stitutional side that new breathing, rich blood, excellent circulation, and all the other health INHIBITION 143 results naturally following, made him quickly well, and he ' ' arose and walked. ' ' If the music the eleven had to listen to (if only on Sundays even) was as mixed and pessi- mistic as the writer had to listen to in the hos- pital twelve years ago, this would largely ac- count for the sudden change for the worse and death of the eleven. Much improvement is now being made in the musical feature in the hospitals and sanitariums. Church music may much lessen or increase the health of congregation and pastor. If one listens to a tune in the old-fashioned minor nasal key with such words as — " Alas ! and did my Saviour bleed, And did my Sovereign die ? Would he devote that sacred head For such a worm as I ? And melt my eyes to tears. But drops of grief can ne'er repay," and allows himself to have the negative feel- ings and the sadness and regret to affect him at the solar plexus, he by God's law is reduced 144 HEALTH THROUGH SELF - CONTKOI in his threefold health. He will more readily develop disease of a certain kind toward which he may have a tendency. The following words were sung in churches sixty years ago, not far from Boston : " Hark, from the tomb a doleful sound, Mine ears attend the cry. Ye living men, come view the ground, Where you must shortly lie." When some noted vocalist sings " Almost per- suaded but lost " to a weeping audience, art is shown, but it is not a sign of healthful success. " Where is my wandering boy to-night? " carries poor blood and poor circulation with its singing. A friend remarked one day that he found himself holding his breath listening to the grandest, most sacred music. When the soul is in tune with the Infinite, no music, noth- ing awes, stops the breathing. A little fear, mystery, or the like is produced by such music, and the law works. To call certain music sacred does not make it harmless. Now let us listen to — INHIBITION 145 " Joy to the world, the Lord is come ! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing," adapted to good old-fashoned major-keyed music. If we let the spirit of it all enter us, we are literally healed. " It is time to be brave, it is time to be true, ' ' and ' ' Peace like a river, it floweth so free, ' ' at once help all who hear, — physically, mentally, spiritually. There is irreligious music, non- spiritual, anti-health music, much of it in our churches. The writer is a church-member, but he believes that our religious practices should be healthful, or they are not of God. Audible prayer may be injurious or helpful to the one praying and to the listener. Silent prayer may be a means of health, grace, or disease. True prayer is adjustment that strength, soul, and body may be evolved. Cheerfulness, boldness, admiration, glad thank- fulness, a fatherly and filial reciprocal confi- dence, are the foundation. " Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts 146 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL with praise; " " gates and courts " include everywhere. " Serve the Lord with gladness." 1 ' Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace." " Eejoice evermore." " The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." " Forever " includes now. The evolution of the animal kingdom is a grand uplifting prayer, adjustment to chang- ing environment for more life. In a slow way the best adapted, in the distant past (and now), to changing environment survived the change. The best adapted of these succeeded in more life amidst adversities. The unadapted, defi- cient, disappeared. Man resulting leads toward God, the prayer of the ages of the race. God is our ideal thinking, the best Father we can imagine. " God is Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is love, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, these are the eter- nal energy, Spirit, God. To worship God is to admire his attributes and desire more of them in our thinking and acting. This is the only way we can worship him, in spirit and INHIBITION 147 in truth or truly. It is the way to love or worship any being or things, seeing the best possible in all, desiring it in all others and our- selves, and so living and acting that more may come to all. Paul says, " But the fruit of the spirit is love, gladness, peace, patience, gen- tleness, purity, faith, mildness, continence. ' ' This is Ferrar Fenton's translation. The reader will note this translator in other quo- tations. Some words have so changed their meaning since 1600 in the " King James " ver- sion that the twentieth-century meanings are given here. Good authority says that love is explained by the eight words following it. Love includes all. A church-member, a Christian, any one who desires truly to live, should worship God, should practise in thought and deed all the time the fruit of the spirit which is to be a presence always showing in his life, — " love, gladness, peace, patience, gentleness, purity, faith, mild- ness, continence, ' ' toward all persons, animals, things, conditions, not one of these virtues, but all, all the time. 148 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL Paul also writes : u If we live spiritually, we should also drill ourselves spiritually. ' ' To drill spiritually is to put into the mind and act all the qualities of the fruit of the spirit when- ever one discovers he is out of the fruit of the spirit, or it is out of him as to practicality. If you hurry, this is not peace, nor gentleness ; if you are gossiping, finding fault, these are not patience. Put away hurry instantly, and gos- siping when you become conscious you are pos- sessed by them, by putting into consciousness peace, patience, love. These states of mind are spirit fruit, and they are health of body, mind, and soul in accordance with the eternal laws of emotional building. The life of Chris- tianity's founder emphasized peace and good- will, poise and kind-heartedness, self-control and toleration. Scientific experiments to-day and for the past few years are proving that God's laws may make us well or ill, according to how we use or apply them. The thermometer at 60 degrees below, at zero, at 212 degrees above, affects us very differently, but one principle is in the INHIBITION 149 effects, — vibration, influence, action, motion, less or more. The states of mind are similar in principle. Put uncontrollable grief or death for fifty degrees or more below zero, gloom below or nearer zero, then despondency, sad- ness, calmness. Now calmness will represent pretty nearly sixty or seventy degrees, the agreeable warmth, life, we associate with the temperature of the weather. Above this, yet within it, will be gladness, then hilarious mirth, then hysterical joy, then uncontrollable, con- vulsive, happy excitement, then death, 212 de- grees. There is this seeming badness and good- ness in all laws, in all emotions, in all exist- ences. In water, for instance, it is ice, melting ice, ice-water, cold water, warm water, hot water, boiling water, steam, and so on. One substance in different vibrations. Death or life to us as our relations to it. Laughter and weeping are two extremes of the same emotion, so to speak. We can arrange a mental ther- mometer for these. Laughter uncontrollable is death, grief uncontrollable is death. The safe place, " the secret place of the Most High," 150 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL is gladness, calm and poised, one of the fruits of the spirit. God is in a law, and Satan appar- ently, but it is all in God, of God, by God, from God, is God. We must work out our salvation by relating ourselves correctly to the law. Law is love, God is law. The only Satan there is, is our ignorance of law, and our non-adapted- ness to it. In every thought is possible heaven or hell. " In his law doth he meditate day and night.' ' " The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.' ' " Heart " is poised emotional states, active from the solar plexus by the subjective mind. It is holy, whole spirit, or as holy as one has. All the virtues taught by all, or any spiritual leader either give all-round health or should give it and would give it if we would relate ourselves harmoniously to eternal law, God. We need not relate ourselves to it on pur- pose to get physical health, but if we will relate our spiritual development to universal, practi- cal law and love, physical health will flow with- out any conscious aim for it. il Seek first the INHIBITION 151 kingdom of heaven (harmony), and all these things shall be added unto you." The laboratory to-day, God observed and experienced, is crying aloud to and sparing not any organization that is teaching and practis- ing principles that lead to less strength of body, mind, and spirituality, i. e. body made weaker, mind not as clear, spirituality becoming for- mality. The Christian Science Church, whether it is wholly scientific or not, is scientific in de- claring " Signs should follow " faith and love, and the inability of the general church to pro- duce the most desired result, health, brought this church into existence. Some unscientific principles of practice crept into the church in the middle centuries, and now we are beginning to resist because some churches are producing the real article, the article of health that fol- lowed naturally and without asserting it as such, during a few centuries after the life of Jesus on earth. If theology, the science, and religion, the art, were spiritual, that is, if the spiritual were always present in the theologians and the re- 152 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL ligionists, they would be as ready and glad to change any church law or principle when found unhealthful, unscientific, as a chemist is glad to accept all the latest discoveries, putting away the incorrect past formulae. God is scientific, is science, and must be studied scientifically, which is in reality spiritually, for it will lead in the main to know God, to live in him, to " enjoy him forever.' ' Opposition to science degrades it to those who oppose it, and acts unpoisedly on the investigators. Because some truth was announced fifteen hundred years ago is no reason for assuming that no larger truth, no correction of seeming truth, can come. Let us be so inductive and deductive in all our church practices, so earnest for the blessed truth, that we will not care who discovers it, or where discovered, provided we receive its bene- fits and godly unfoldment; then religion and science will be one and the same, so will State and Church be one, cannot help being so, for the Church then could not be separated from the life of the State, for only one healthful way would prevail, there could be no other. All INHIBITION 153 religious work would be persuasive, reasonable, practical, scientific, healthful, attractive, nat- ural, spiritual. " There are so many invalids among the pious " is a frequent saying that has arisen from spirituality becoming more and more non- spirituality ; cheerful faces becoming long faces; optimistic thinking, pessimistic think- ing; positive, loving habits becoming negative, condemning, and gossiping habits; peace, hurry; patience, impatience; gladness, sad- ness; and intelligent, practical faith a fossil- ized, bigoted moral code. To feel that one is a " poor worm of the dust," that one does well to weep and mourn religiously, to sorrow, to regret, to fret, to worry, to hurry, is to make invalids among the pious, though such persons are impious. " Eeligion never was designed to make our pleasures less." God is the same in pulpit and laboratory. " If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion." " A sick man is a vil- lain," so wrote a noted American. " An ill man is a coward or a fool, ' ' wrote a celebrated 154 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF -CONTROL Englishman. " Man does not die, he kills him- self,' ' says another equally earnest observer. In politics when we follow party or the can- didate rather than the principles we love, in the end the best is not accomplished. When we worship or dedicate ourselves to a personal Jesus, rather than to the principles he lived, we make a more dangerous mistake. It leads to theology, not to all-round spirituality; it may possibly lead to religiosity. Theology quarrels, religion has or assumes the pious talk, spirituality is glad, sincere, peaceful, good-willed. Why are not all the young men and women glad and desirous to join the church or to be members of it, just as glad as to join the best, most healthful and interesting organ- ization they are members of? There is a half- shamefacedness about the matter. The church should be whole, catholic, so natural, so scien- tific, so healthful, so cheerful, so interesting, that no other society or organization could be preferred or even needed. The church or a religion must include all that helps and devel- ops man most in every particular. INHIBITION 155 When the young men and women note the tendency to fossilized religious practices, when they see those who declare they love the Cross are so easily made cross emotionally, if dif- fered from in logic, philosophy, or theology, how can they see attractiveness in those claim- ing to have spiritual love, peace, patience, glad- ness, gentleness! Theological hair-splitting, which is so tense and therefore unhealthful, is typicalized in this current story: " Three clergymen of different denominations spent their summer vacations incidentally at the same hotel. They were much together in boating, fishing, bathing, tennis. These they all en- joyed, always cheerfully and kindly disposed, but whenever they talked on religious and theological matters, they lost their poise, with even a little bigotry. Their consciences troub- led them. On the day before parting, they determined to be agreeable in one religious discussion at least, that they might depart to their several churches in love toward each other. Kev. Mr. A. was appointed to choose a verse for discussion from the Bible by opening 156 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTROL the book at random, selecting the passage the eyes first settled on. He was to give his ver- sion of the lines, then the two others likewise. The verse thus decided on was, ' And David danced before the ark.' Eev. A. said only one view could prevail, viz. David danced in front of the ark, in its presence. Rev. B. said it had a deeper, more important historical meaning and that only, viz. David danced before the ark was in existence. Eev. C. ridiculed both ex- planations and declared vehemently that only one meaning of the passage was sensible or credible, his, viz. David danced and then the ark danced. They said a frigid good-by, and each remarked to the others: ' Some day you will see it as I do. It is a very important point in Scriptural interpretation. ' " " Resist not evil " was exemplified by Jesus Christ in its fulness. He went to his death rather than resist. The redemption from non- self-control, from hate to love, must come along this line. Can the average Christian " resist evil " when he is told falsely or truly that he is dishonest? Does he resist? How much? INHIBITION 157 Mental blows? Physical blows ? Spiritual loss or gain? We ought to be glad to be told our deficiencies and make them less, or kindly prove to the accuser that he has made a mistake. Such loving dignified attitude will in the end do more for humanity than resentment, quarrel- ling, fighting, stabbing, duelling, war. War and strife in a nation, state, town, between nations, can never cease until each family can live in peace and good-will during twenty-four hours each day among its members. Why should not a clergyman who assumes to lead the people, as a business, be fitted for it most successfully? He should be good at tennis, baseball, golf, running, swimming, developed in all acquirements possible, if these things are best for any one. Then the guide will not be blind and will not lead the blind into the ditch. He would teach poise in all things. u If we could fairly get to the bottom of the thought of many a youngster who turns his back upon church and preacher and Christian Association and Christian Union and Societies for Christian Endeavor, he has, if he would 158 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL dare say so, the notion which Aucassin had in the Provencal story. You ask him to go into Paradise. And his reply is : ' Into Paradise f Do you know who those are that go there, — you, who think it a place where I wish to go! They are old priests, old cripples, old one-eyed men, such as lie day and night before the altars, sickly, miserable, shivering, half-naked, half- fed, dead already before they die. Those are they who go to Paradise, and they are such pitiful companions that I do not desire to go to Paradise with them. But to hell would I gladly go; for to hell go the good clerks and the fair knights slain in battle and in great wars, the brave sergeants-at-arms, and the men of noble lineage, and with all these would I gladly go.' " This same tendency of theological teaching, as viewed by the business-world impression now, is shown in the following: A discussion about the orthodox heaven and hell was in full process. At the close, one in so-called good standing in church circles, remarked, " As for INHIBITION 159 me, for climate I would prefer heaven, but for society I would prefer hell." " Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good- will toward men " was the spiritual demand nineteen hundred years ago. God was being feared, dreaded, he was not a loving father. The people were in moral and spiritual development about what they conceived God's attributes to be. A " Glory to God in the high- est " would be a character of the highest kind, fatherly, loving, omnipresent, to be associated in men's minds when they thought of God. This " association " would lead to more " peace on earth and good- will toward men." The aspirations to-day are or ought to be the same, and we must get the fulfilment more. " Peace and good-will " can never even quar- rel. We must associate all good things with God in this world, in us, whether physical, men- tal, or spiritual. He must be one's best friend, our health, " who is the health of my counte- nance ; ' ' " the Lord is the strength of my life ; ' ' our help in study ; i ' God is a very pres- ent help in trouble ; " in football ; in business. 160 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL We may no more divorce the physical, mental, and spiritual from one another, one spirit in all things, practical, wholesome, lifeful. The very words, God, church, should make us glad even at the solar plexus, as happy as children are who are delighted. Give practical, healthful meanings to Scrip- tural writings, applicable to every-day needs. Leave the theological hair-splitting out. The- ology will take care of itself later in life. This will help to save the rising generations. 11 What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Is physical strength needed? Let the virtues of mind be made habits, as peace and good-will, and what is desired comes. It can come instantly. Prayer is answered. Good praying is answered in a good way, bad praying is answered in a bad way. The prayer is the state of mind made dominant, and this mind will perform through the subjective mind in its chemist laboratories in the body its di- rections. Body and mind respond to the prayer. The moment one decides to be cheer- INHIBITION 161 ful and not sad, that moment the prayer is answered some or much in all departments of health. i ' Pray without ceasing ' ' is the uni- form state of the total mind in gladness, cour- age, love, whether asleep or awake, at home with the family or away, in business; it is health. An invalid lady said, ' ' I keep His commands, I claim His promises, and I get no better.' ' She was reminded that she was very unkind to her nurse, and that was not keeping His commands, and no good promises could be kept by Him. She was theological, not spiritual. " Only believe and thou shalt be saved.' ' Be- lieve what! "As a man thinketh, so is he." Believe is to belife. To belife is to put into the life, mind, breathing, eating, — peace, good- will, which are the best emotional health bring- ers. " Saved " from what! Whatever is mak- ing you less, — hurry, worry, impatience, jeal- ousy, unkindness, impurity, gossip, a cold, rheumatism — which are killing you in all ways. Believe that godliness in mind is god- liness in body, that is, belife it, and you will 162 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF - CONTKOL see that a physical cold and a mental cold are two sides of the same vibration. " Thy faith hath saved thee." Faith? Principle of belief and act. " Go, sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you. ' ' " Sin no more, ' ' that is, keep practising the saving principle that saved you, avoiding disease-producing acts and thoughts. " Seek first the kingdom of heaven (har- mony) and all these things shall be added unto you." There are two ways of getting com- mercial riches. One is to get them honestly or dishonestly, whichever is easier, but to get them. The mind is set on getting money. In the way advocated in the quotation, the riches will naturally follow true harmony in a person without his consciously seeking them. How? Harmony really lived day and night means, by the emotional laws, more strength, physically, mentally, spiritually, — this strength must suc- ceed in business and everywhere. It would attract customers. It would make harmonious people more desired for the most responsible positions; higher salaries; better opportuni- ties would open up to such persons than to the INHIBITION 163 inharmonious. If you say this is not true of Christians to-day, it may be so, but it is not the fault of the workings of the principle of harmony, but of its being half -lived, half -prac- tised. This way of harmonious wealth is god- like. All the fruit of the spirit is gathered. Happiness, health, and competency come with- out first making them conscious objects. Why is there so much profanity among Christian nations? Such use of the words, God, Jesus, Lord, Almighty, damn, hell? Largely because of an arbitrary, condemning, angry God, taught to the people, in the distant past most, instead of a loving and just father, a self-controlled Jehovah. We become like those we believe in, and imitate what they do and think. Even this tendency is non-health. We must have more and more the loving, fatherly idea of God, and less and less of the detective, punishing one. We must come to see that we punish ourselves or free ourselves by God's wise laws. " Love is the greatest thing in the world.' ' Martin Luther grew sick of life, discouraged, ill. Where were love of 164 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL and trust in the universe? His wife put on mourning to intensify his and her despondency. Where were love and health? Preparing here so much for a future life after death is not healthful in any sense. The Sadducees believed it would detract from real- izing a practical living while on earth. We prepare for any future by living scientifically now. No future day of judgment after death can demand any extra preparation which is not best for every-day home living. It is known that Christians used to be well in body as in mind. St. John writes : " I pray above all, friend, that you may be prosperous and well, just as your soul prospers.' ' " The Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost." Who more than the sick man needs saving? His soul and body prosper together. Salvation is whole, not partial; scientific, not theological. An Ohio Lutheran clergyman was dismissed from his pastorate because he was the means of making a certain church-member well in body. Another clergyman called on a very ill INHIBITION 165 parishioner. By his cheer and sympathy she suddenly rose from her couch and was well. He was alarmed lest he should be surmised of healing her. He declared he was not guilty as far as he knew. It is a question of health now and in future, or health simply, for a cer- tainty, in some distant future in the unseen. One kind of Christian doctrine is giving a promissory note for health and happiness, pay- able x years after sight, out of the body, assur- ing ecstasy from that time on. Another kind is giving a promissory note payable at sight, in the body, assuring harmony and health forever here and there. Christians, all religious organizations, must live love, be love, bring up the children in love, else there will soon be no distinction between the Church and the so-called world. By love here is not meant a backboneless kind, but the real " fruit of the spirit " kind. Dr. Edward Everett Hale has written this: " I always knew God loved me, I always was grateful to him for the world I was placed in by God. I always liked to tell him so, and was 166 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL always glad to receive his suggestions to me. I enjoyed life because I could not help it, not because I ought to. A child who is early taught that he is God's child, that he may live and move and have his being in God, and that he has therefore infinite strength at hand for the conquering of any difficulty, will take life more cheerfully and probably will make more of it than one who is told that he is born the child of wrath and wholly incapable of good." " Isn't this very hot weather? How oppress- ive the heat is! What shall we do if it be- comes any warmer? It is so tiresome. I don't feel fit for anything. It's beginning to rain, and this hot mugginess will make it unbearable. How people must be suffering! I know some will be overcome by the heat and die to-day. I do hope husband is not suffering. We can't go anywhere in this weather. What's the use in living? It's just a shame to have such weather. It's too bad." One hears equally pessimistic conversation when the weather is too cold, too windy. So far as this habit of finding fault of the INHIBITION 167 weather is emotionally felt, it affects the health foundationally, badly in all directions. One who so indulges says in reality that the Ruler of the Universe is much at fault, objects to his dispensation. It is at least kicking against the pricks. One is so depleted by this habit that the weather affects him badly much more read- ily. Think on other things, put weather out of the mind, or see all the good points in it, and strength to endure easily the weather thereby comes. " VISION " It isn't raining rain to me, It's raining daffodils down, In every dimpled drop I see Wild flowers on distant hills. " The clouds of gray engulf the day, And overwhelm the town, It isn't raining rain to me — It's raining roses down. " It isn't raining rain to me, But fields of clover bloom, Where any buccaneering bee May find a bed and room. 168 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTEOL " A health unto the happy, A fig for him who frets, It isn't raining rain to me, It's raining violets." — Sidney Lanier. The weather is not changed by this kind of criticism unless it is really made worse, for, if all causes and effects are tied together uni- versally, all good thought or vibration helps the universe to express itself better, and all pessimistic, negative thinking and conversation will affect the universe negatively or badly. There is relation between a stormy mind, a hot mind, and stormy, hot weather. " He com- mandeth even the winds and the water, and they obey him. ' ' Mr. J., unless the weather was perfect to him, uniformly replied, in a faultfinding tone to people who saluted him with, " Good morn- ing," " What's it good for? " This was typ- ical of his way of thought. He died at sixty-five of poor circulation of the blood, the doctor said. Mr. A., on all occasions, good weather, bad INHIBITION 169 weather, when accosted with a " Good morn- ing/ ' replied, in cheerful tones, " Yes, good enough for two." This was the tone of his whole life. He lived in health till ninety-one, then died suddenly. The mother says to her child, " dear! don't bother me." This " dear " so spoken does not mean love, but it is derived from the French Dieu — God. It is profanity, if there is such a thing. Her emotions are negative, below zero, and she is getting her reward and much harming her child. Games and sports would be exceedingly healthful if the emotions were always poised, were of the unselfish kind. Rivalry, disap- pointment, undue strenuousness to win for self, through the laws of the emotional effects on body, make such activities detractive to health. When one can play croquet with a satisfac- tion as great when his opponent is winning as when he himself is winning, then the game is royally wholesome. Such a person would win more easily by his saved energy. How do you do? How do you feel to-day? 170 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTEOL If the questioned one is well, or if the ques- tioner is intellectively, non-emotionally asking, not much harm is done, if any. If the friend is not well, and says so, his health is decreased and the inquirer will have trouble at the solar plexus if he listens to a doleful tale. There is a better salutation. Let us think when we can on what we wish to be, and not on what we do not wish to be. " Oh! do see that cripple. Isn't it too bad? I'm so sorry. How he must suffer.' 9 Better spend all this energy of food, oxygen, and thought in wishing him well, in good telepathy, in a deed. Save him, save yourself. Gossip, faultfinding, little condemnations are incipient hate. They induce some of the re- sults of hate on all persons concerned. ' l Judge not, that ye be not judged " is psychologically healthful. The " I am better than you " feel- ing leads to much gossip. The " I am as good as you " to less gossip. The " You are as good as I " feeling admits no gossip. " There is so much bad in the best of us, And so much good in the worst of us, INHIBITION 171 That it hardly behooves any of us To talk about the rest of us." " Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." We do to ourselves be- fore we do to another, whether our thought is good or bad. The law is executed in us while we think the deed. " Love your enemies " is more, physiologic- ally and psychologically, in favor of the lover than the enemy. To love one's enemies is health. " Hate your enemies " is as much death to the hater as to the enemy, and may be more. The emotional laws are unalterable. It is health to us and others to see the best we can in all persons, things, events. They who are emotional dealers in jealousy, prejudice, suspicion are hastened into bank- ruptcy of health. The subjective mind that is jealous may soon build cancerous tissue. Prejudice is prejudgment, a groundless opin- ion. u A Mr. J. has moved into town. I don't like his appearance. I know he will be a troub- lesome citizen. I hope we won't meet him." Prejudging him induces or increases his dis- 172 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL agreeableness, affects his health, career, nega- tively, and those of the gossipers far more. " Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof." Trying to make others feel kindly or rightly toward ourselves is a very unhealthful business for both parties concerned. Making one's self harmonious toward others, whether they are satisfied or not with us, is peace and life for the harmonizer, and it will bring more harmony and development of spiritual strength to the enemy than can be brought about in any other way. See to it that we ourselves are right in our disposition toward others, not that they are rightly dispositioned toward us. No dignity is lost in this way. Let us seek to right ourselves, not others. Suspicion at once holds the breath, and that is the beginning of a train of depleters. Pride and vanity are inimical to peace and good-will, hence to health. Worry is a waste of energy, of nerve-centre energy, worse than thrown away. This energy could be used to prevent what is feared. " Do INHIBITION 173 see where Johnny is and what he is doing, and tell him not to do it " is representative of untold wasted energy, lost health, premature agedness, shrivelled life. We are all doing more or less of this in various ways, but we may not realize it. " Worry, not work, kills." At least, " Worry kills ten where work kills one. ' ' There is a fear of worry more harmful than worry, a worry lest one may worry, as — " I've joined the new ' Don't Worry Club.' And now I hold my breath ; I am so scared for fear 111 worry, That I'm worried 'most to death." Worry is an emotional boomerang, hurry is equally so. Four-fifths of the energy generated by the mind from the food and oxygen, blood, are used to keep the body in repair. The re- maining fifth can be used for business, pleas- ure, activities, mind and muscle work. A per- son who hurries while he works or thinks, con- sumes more than the one-fifth energy which should be used in appropriate activity. The hurry mind state especially oxidizes the cell 174 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL energy in the nerve-centres, whether one moves a muscle or not. Now add the oxidizing effect of work, and he soon becomes languid, tired, despondent, worn out. One can sit still all day worrying, and use up all the energy he acquires from eating and breathing, and consume much of the tissue of the normal body. When one hurries and worries and works, he must sooner or later take less pleasure in life, in his home, accomplish less, not do it as well, tire sooner. While a person hurries, he cannot breathe enough oxygen, no organ can function well. While a person hurries, he cannot breathe or both, he needs more oxygen to be supplied to the food in the blood for the work, but if he hurries he cannot get enough oxygen into the blood through the lungs, for one cannot hurry and use the lungs well, — all the bad results of a negative emotion follow. If one works and thinks cheerfully, he has four-fifths ox his en- ergy for the body as a machine, and one-fifth to use in his activities, for a cheerful state of mind does not only not wear out nerve-centres, but it vitalizes, electrifies them, and causes the ERRATUM Page 174^ line 13, should read : While a person works mentally or physically, INHIBITION 175 lungs to do their best as to purifying the blood, and hence every organ will do its best. All the positive effects permeate the being. One can thus do more work in the same time, do it better, and work longer without exhausting his one-fifth energy. In the evening such a person will love to be with his family and friends, if not otherwise properly engaged, to go calling, to attend a lecture, because he has unused en- ergy. Especially should a Christian always be cheerful, never a worrier or hurrier, for " Christian " should include " peace and good- will " always. " God's activity is his repose. 7 ' A home with cheerfulness in it is a missionary spot for the best gospel of health; one with hurry and worry in it is unsanitary in every way. Hasten differs from hurry. When one hur- ries he breathes short breaths, holds his breath out or in ; he lacks oxygen and strength. When one hastens he moves as quickly as when he hurries, but his breathing is deeper and more regular, and enough oxygen goes in for poised activity. One can hasten for the train with 176 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL adequate breathing. He cannot hurry for the train and breathe adequately. It is not only that poise will get the person to the train as soon or sooner, but that after reaching the train he knows just what to do, with no pant- ing, palpitation of the heart, no wild gesticula- tion. He has consumed much less energy. " The end crowns the work." " Maximum results with minimum expenditure " is thus the fulfilling of the law. Invest in hurry and there are no dividends, but there are ever increasing assessments. Invest in cheerfulness and even hasten, and there are always dividends with the stock at a premium. One must have two times as much oxygen by weight as food in the blood to be at his best. The ever present hurry and worry of to-day absolutely prevent (rod 's law of two to one of oxygen and food from being ful- filled. Health is scientific, a science and an art. To hurry is to annul the chief commandment. To say " Grod loves those whom he chastens " is to say he loves those who do not abide in peace. When one lacks phosphorus in his system, INHIBITION 177 he thinks the doctor wise to direct him to take phosphorus in food or medicine. When one is tempted by hurry, worry, or any negative emo- tion, let him know that he lacks oxygen, and the wise thing for him to immediately do is cheerfully to breathe more deeply, even with an inward smile, and outward, too, if not too noticeable. This extra breathing will tend to make up the lack of oxygen and restore equi- librium and courage. The diaphragm activates the solar plexus and all the building forces, extra oxygen meets the lonesome food and the two marry compatibly and produce a family of physical, mental, and spiritual strength. This poised thinking will induce the diaphragm rather than the ribs to move. The mind gets hold of itself in commanding the breathing and is reinforced. The fatigue point depends on the mind state. Observation at educational institutions have been made on students working in the indus- trial department, as while carving. Certain students are cheerfully in love with their work, others are indifferent, still others work the 178 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTEOL allotted time impatient to be free, or to do something else. The first class of workers, as compared with the second and third, do better work, do more in the same time, and do not tire as soon. Cheerfulness succeeds. Carlyle, who reaped a harvest he didn't appreciate, wrote: " Give us, oh! give us the man who sings at his work. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. Wondrous is the power of cheerfulness, altogether past calcu- lation its power of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very glad- ness, beautiful because bright. ,, Impurity in a general sense is weakening; impurity of thought and act is deathward. When any so-called physical passion is in- dulged in, whose aim is not to elevate and strengthen all who indulge in it, for time and eternity, it is an impure act. Such a negative state of mind and act consume vitality in a most rapid and degenerating manner. Even INHIBITION 179 the thought alone, here, as in any negative emo- tion, e. g. anger with no vented action on an- other, undermines all health, deadens all vir- tues, upsets all poise. Poise in this direction would speedily cause divorce to disappear. 1 ' My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure." Eating ice-cream between meals, when the body has all the food it needs, weakens reason, tends to make life seem less worth living, and health is badly affected in several ways. The stage offers a healthful or an unhealth- ful work. If in the plays, pessimism, negativ- ity, sentimental thought, are indulged in, cor- responding results follow. If optimistic, posi- tive, wholesome practical impersonation pre- vail, results on actor and audience are a per- manent health uplift. Compare the actors, Jefferson and McCullough. One presented jolly characters, optimistic experiences, comedy. The other was a tragedian, stern, negative in his theatrical work. Jefferson, hale and healthy, died suddenly at seventy-six. McCullough, troubled even to insanity, died at forty-eight. 180 HEALTH THBOUGH SELF-CONTKOL Mrs. H. acted " Blind Bertha " in Dickens's " Cricket on the Hearth." She put her soul into it, or it into her soul. The subjective mind as a chemist did its work. She became sud- denly blind. Forrest and other actors tell us that, after acting parts like Othello, Iago, Desdemona, they are very much exhausted, " knocked out," very tired, despondent, on the next morning. The jealousy, anger, remorse, even only acted, do their lawful weakening work. The more intensely the part is enacted in such plays, the worse the effect on the actor. His art may be perfect, but not his health. The audience re- ceive corresponding results, if they allow them- selves to experience the emotions enacted. It is not alone the impure air of the theatre that makes one feel languid after the attendance. There is a tendency to form the habit at theatre of sentimentalism, namely, to " feel bad," condemn and approve emotionally points brought out in the play and not putting the emotional sad or glad ecstasies into practical use. INHIBITION 181 Faith and works, practical living, consists of thinking, deciding, execnting, depending in a general way on sensory nerves, nerve centres, and motor nerves, or, in other words, impres- sion, reasoning, performance. Sentimentalism is faith without works ; it performs not. It is a great anti-health factor. A Russian lady wept at theatre in St. Peters- burg over the portrayal of the sufferings of the poor till midnight, while her coachman sat cold and nearly freezing without. This reminds one of Marie Antoinette, who, on hearing that the rioting poor were starving and could get no bread, asked why they did not eat cake. St. Paul said that faith without works is dead. " Example is stronger than precept." " Practise what you preach." " Lack to live one's ideal is sin." " No conscious beggar breathes well." One can listen successfully to a play that may be somewhat negative by maintaining an intellective state of mind, i. e. neither pessi- mistic nor optimistic. Choose the play you are 182 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL to hear as you would choose more life or less life. " Parsifal " presents for a half -hour an im- morally tempting scene. There is final tri- umph, but inhibition should be instant; dwell- ing on what you wish not to be is not the way of life. " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs only to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. For truth has such a face and such a mien, As, to be loved, needs only to be seen." It cannot be seen too oft. A lady had been to see " Everyman " the evening before. How did she like the play? Enjoyed every minute, — wept from beginning to end. How was she feeling now? Not very well. The air in the theatre was very impure, and it had brought on an attack of indigestion. The air doubtless had something to do with the indigestion, but had the play been more whole- somely practical, the kind that makes the lungs INHIBITION 183 work well and all other functions glad, indi- gestion would have been digestion. We can find also in books, pictures, art of all kinds, newspapers, acts of the government, health or non-health. There are no health or non-health accidents. Two and two are always four. One can " catch cold " in reading a cer- tain kind of a novel, a disappointing love-story, or get rid of a cold by reading a novel that so invigorates one that the blood is purified and the disease becomes ease. Unless one can in- hibit quickly or read intellectively the news- paper horrors, his health is doomed little by little. Eead the news to see what is going on, decide intellectively what is best to do, as giving money, reforming the laws, lending a hand, but read in poise, retaining strength that you may be able to do the best for all. Do not mourn away energy that can be put to helpful use. Life is negative, pessimistic, discouraging, despondent, regretful enough, without attend- ing rehearsals of these emotional tendencies, whether on the stage, in the book, or with art. 184 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF -CONTROL We shall always, during our imperfect state, have enough temptation in life-work to give us an opportunity to work out a salvation, to be tempted in all points for growth, to " over- come evil with good." Give us more elevating plays, grander and more purely cheerful and innocently full of laughter. Give us pictures on our walls that will by looking on them make us breathe better. Put " Mater Beatifica " in the place of " Mater Dolorosa.' ' Shall we not cultivate the emotions? Cer- tainly. Cultivate courage, peace, love, pa- tience, gladness. Is it wise to cultivate hurry, worry, gossip, hating, sorrowing, anger, and remorsing? If health is wisdom, the negative emotions must be made less and less in our experience; wholesomeness and all positive emotions must become more and more the mind habit. American advertising often leads to depres- sion in the observer. One looks at an advertis- ing picture in which Omega Oil is being applied to the cure of rheumatism, and finds himself picturing in his mind what the face of the rheu- INHIBITION 185 matic expresses. Inhibition must be quick, else the chest will depress and vitality be lessened. Pity and sympathy should be distinguished. Pity is false sympathy. Pity expressed to any one lowers his vitality and that of the pitier; sympathy expressed raises the vitality of both. 6 ' How tired you look. You must feel so weary. It's too bad you had to walk such a distance. It's a shame." This kind of talk, pity, will lessen the breathing of the tired one immedi- ately, and we know what accompanies this. To greet the tired one cheerfully, with no ref- erence to the weariness, to present a restful seat, to engage in glad conversation on whole- some subjects, is to make the person less tired, to breathe better, and we know what accom- panies this. This is true sympathy. It makes both breathe better, and this is the key-note of health and harmony. You can distinguish by the breathing, pity from sympathy. Sympathy is correct burden-bearing. The helper assists, but arouses the other to self-reliance. " Bear ye one another's burdens." " For every man shall bear his own burden." 186 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL A few students each agreed to tell a student selected for the experiment or trick that he looked sick, that he seemed weak, looked pale. During an hour each had an opportunity. In two hours this selected student felt ill and ob- tained leave of absence to go home to recuper- ate. His classmates, realizing the harm they were doing, soon persuaded him that he was well. He recuperated then and there. To tell an emotional child that he ought to be ashamed of himself for doing a certain act is to compel him to breathe about half enough or less oxygen. He can be reformed more quickly along positive, optimistic lines. You will have more vitality on which you can make an impression, and you will have more vitality to use. A man was ill. A small boy from across the street went into the room without permission, walked up to the bed and said : ' ' How bad you look. My grandmother looked like that and she died. Well, I can't stay any longer. Aren't you glad I've come to see you? " Is the gen- eral conversation among people much more INHIBITION 187 healthful than this? Is this pity or sympathy? Are we friends or enemies ? Mamma comes home and finds Johnny cry- ing. " What are you crying about? " " Boo- hoo, I fell down yesterday and hurt myself.' ' " Well, what are you crying about it to-day for? " " Why, you weren't here yesterday." The mother's fault. We all did this in one way or another to our mothers. We are doing as wrongly now when we rehearse our woes, some burglary, divorce case, selected tidbits of gos- sip, to our husband, wife, best friend. Such doings very much lessen the life of all, for each goes through all the subjective mind and solar plexus shocks. " I am so sorry you are ill " is a familiar statement. To think sorrowfully cannot help the invalid nor the observer. It does very much lower the vitality of both. Talk on sub- jects that will lead to more activity of lungs. Illness report will cease to get an audience in the invalid's mind, and that will help the sub- jective mind to do better work right away. u Christians and other martyrs at the stake 188 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL have been oblivious to burning limb while their minds were cheerfully at work imparting lov- ing messages to their enemies." This proves that invalids can become oblivious to their pain, and will become so if we assist by true sympa- thy and not by pity, and thus better bodily functioning can take place at once, and we shall be " working miracles " by a universal law. If this greeting to the invalid is said con- ventionally, not much harm is done, but it is purposeless, weak. If said and not at all meant, the results on both are surely depleting. Con- scious insincerity works against us. " I wish I hadn't eaten that salad.' ' Say- ing this emotionally causes the salad to digest less easily. There will not be enough oxygen to make efficient gastric juice to digest the salad. Say if you wish, intellectively, " Next time I'll be wiser," then drop the thought, breathe, and be glad. " Too bad I was out when you called." If this is a fib, it is not healthful. If it is true, say, " How kind of you; do call soon again. I do so much wish to talk with you. ' ' The tone INHIBITION 189 of voice here tells so much. If you are glad you were out, " the least said, the soonest mended," but let cheerful sincerity prevail " though the heavens fall." Many suffer tenseness and unease when call- ers stay too long. This condition interferes with the whole electro-magnetic plant of the body. Be at peace, relax, callers will go as soon. If you have not the time for a longer call, say so in the beauty of holiness or whole- ness. No one in this way can be offended. Sincerity, simplicity, is relaxation, is good cir- culation of good blood and all the other col- lateral good things. Secrecy, fear, tenseness, are poor circulation of poor blood and all the other collateral poor things. There are days when one does no other work than receive callers, and yet that one is worn and weary at retiring time. This is all unneces- sary. Be glad all day long and thus conserve your energy, spend it royally and thus benefit your callers and yourself more. One breaks a piece of rare crockery, a gift, 190 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTEOL and mourns to illness over it. That doesn't mend the article, and it breaks the owner. " There is no help for spilled milk," unless it is to peacefully avoid in the future a like blun- der. Take several deep breaths, smile, and inhibit substitutional^. It will give you health, and you will not be so liable to break another article. You miss your purse on arriving at the store, left it at home, have a sinking spell at the solar plexus, denounce yourself. This will not bring the purse. It will not give you as much strength to go home to get it, or as clear a mind to devise the best procedure. Be happier that day than usual, breathe more, drink more water between meals, and you will in the future re- member oftener little things and big things. Lose a train and regret it keenly, talk about it. Of what help is this ? Spend the time wait- ing in wholesome thinking and conversation. Banish, inhibit pessimism. Do not mention the " lost train " unless in a business way. Live above such vibrations. " A wise man rules his stars, a fool obeys them." Stars? A certain INHIBITION 191 grouping of the stars at birth is said to influ- ence the new-born into better or worse condi- tions. A lost watch, a lost train, a lost fortune, a lost friend or relative may send you down or up in life, according as you obey wrong ten- dencies or direct them, change them. These are some of the stars we must rule or become less. "It is never too late to mend.'' " "We always may become what we might have been. ' ' The many little sads at home and every- where that should be transmuted immediately into glads are keeping so many in a languid state and helping to make them failures. Conscious secrets in the home and in business prevent perfect bodily functioning. One sub- consciously at least fears lest he may say some- thing at the wrong time before the wrong per- son. Free yourselves. " The truth shall make you free." Apologies that cover up the real reason are helping toward mind slavery and bodily in- harmony. " The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination; how much more when he bring- eth it with a wicked mind? " 192 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Even conventional " white lies/' infinitesi- mal excuses, whether by word, look, or gesture, hinder natural, wholesome development. Many are prostrated at Christmas time in shopping, selecting love gifts, planning for the holiday pleasures. Christmas time, by its name, should mean more life, not less. At this season of the year nervousness, scolding, un- kind words, tiredness, illness increase. What is wrong? Peace and good- will, poise and good-naturedness, self-control and kind-heart- edness depart as hurry, worry, hustle come in. Adequate breathing becomes insufficient breath- ing. This is only one link in the chain that shackles us. Spring cleaning is a sanitary work so far as the house is concerned, but it usually proves unsanitary to the housekeeper and all the occu- pants of the house. How? Lack of poise, lack of cheerfulness, presence of hurry, worry, wish- ing it over. Let us clean house mentally also. Dressmaking time, new-bonnet season lower the health tone. Why? Lack of poise which upsets the life processes of the body. Keep INHIBITION 193 efficient breathing going and poise will abide. It works both ways. Poise and breathe. Breathe and poise. Why does not gathering- flowers unpoise one as much as house-cleaning, bonnet-getting? We can make all duties to be pleasures. Cultivate cheerfulness, and the transformation will be worked. Why not do so? We can thus do more, do it better, in the same time, and work longer. If we must do a certain work, let us be wise, business-wise at least, and have a good time at it, save energy, have health, and a better opportunity to pass on to work we do naturally like. Get the healthy attitude of mind first and last. If one must study mathematics, let him see all the good things in the work, and not think on the other features, and soon he has generated a liking for it. This is health. It is good to tell glad things, not to rehearse woes and disappointments, as in a circle of ladies, but many err in wanting to occupy all the time in their talking. Others wish to assist in the good work. You may notice many on such occasions holding their breath, watching 194 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL to get a chance to put a word in edgewise. This is not healthful. Deeply breathe all the time, and you will get an opportunity to speak just as soon. We have been told religiously to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. It has always been the tendency to gos- sip, find fault, regret, remorse, mourn, weep with those who thus indulge, but it is not so common to rejoice with those who rejoice. This is one reason why St. Paul emphasized " re- joice,' ' naming it first. He as much as said to the people to whom he wrote, the Eomans, and we are all more or less Eomans, that they were doing enough or too much of this pessi- mistic conversation, and that they must pay more attention to rejoicing in others' success and joys, as though some soon became jealous if they had to listen to the successes of others. True sympathy rejoices over others as much as over self. Birthday anniversaries may tend to make their number less. Sometimes the young cry for or discouragingly long for the next birth INHIBITION 195 anniversary, they love the day so. Some dis- like to think on it or celebrate it, if the day marks fifty or more. If one can celebrate his birthday anniversaries with all good " associa- tions of ideas, ' ' he is strengthened to live many more of them, but if the day reminds him of old age, which he dreads; of decline, senility, death, which he fears; he had better omit the celebration. If one would like to live in the unseen as well as he likes to live here, he will linger longer, for he has rid himself of a death fear which causes life on earth to shorten. Why not live each day grandly and make no distinction? Celebrate them all with ever in- creasing happy life. The Church in some way, it seems, has in- culcated among its followers that the ninetieth Psalm largely fixes man's age at seventy or eighty years. The meaning of the ninetieth Psalm, summed up in a few words, seems to be that its writer thought the longevity of the people had been reduced to seventy or eighty years by the iniquities of the people, and he beseeches Gk>d to help the people to return to 196 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Him, to gladness, rejoicing, beauty, good works, glory, that their lives may lengthen. The ninety-first Psalm declares that long life and salvation will be the reward of him that " dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High." The salvation denoted is to be free- dom from the " snare of the fowler," " from terror by night," " the arrow that flieth by day," " pestilence that walketh in darkness," " destruction that wasteth at noonday," and freedom from death in the " thousand that shall fall at his side," and the " ten thousand at his right hand," from " evil and plague," from the " lion and adder," " the dragon." The Psalm ends, ' ' With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." To dwell on old age's usual accompaniments is to bring about the undesirable condition. " The thing I greatly feared has come upon me." " Prophecy tends to fulfil itself." To desire to live longer, and think seventy years is the limit, decreases vitality. In these Psalms are practically stated all the laws shown in the effects of the emotions on INHIBITION 197 body and mind building. Science to-day uses different terms and different philosophical statements, but the underlying principles and causes are the same whether from the psalm writer or from the experimenter in the labora- tory, who is verifying God's being the " same yesterday, to-day, and forever." " With him is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- ing. ' ' Anxiety as commonly felt for others or self, invites death, dissolution of the mind from the body. It explains how to " save one's life is to lose it," and how to " lose one's life is to save it." Dreading events for others or self is equally weakening and cowardly. Some lives are largely made up of regrets for the past, worries and hurries in the present, fears and dreads of the future. " Your thoughts are your burdens, never mind them." An old lady told her physician that she had taken cold, and she knew it came from ' * taking some gruel out of a damp saucepan," for she said when she realized what she was doing she knew she was " in for it." Doubtless this 198 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL gruel act did cause the cold. How could it do otherwise? Law is law. Killing mosquitoes, flies, snakes, mice may make us less in all ways, or more, according to the reasonable or unreasonable state of mind in which we do the killing. One can destroy a mosquito in love, or hate, or vengeance. One injures his wholeness when he tumbles over a chair, hurting himself, if he feels resent- ment toward it. God is in a chair as in a friend. Immaculate Conception can be practised in all our thoughts and dealings. A pure, loving, considerate, helpful, unprejudiced conception in mind toward all persons, events, and things is possible. This is the universal Immaculate Conception which would bring wholeness, har- mony, health, the millennium, heaven, eternal life now. During the Civil War three-fourths of the teachers, two-thirds of the physicians and clergymen, one-third of the laborers and farm- ers that applied for service in the war were rejected on account of lack of physical equip- ment. There was an increase of disease as the INHIBITION 199 so-called social scale was ascended, from the chiefly heavy muscle-working class to the nearly exclusively cerebral or brain workers. The cause assigned for this " scale " was muscle use and pure air, the lack or abundance of each. These are not the foundational rea- sons. The emotions regulate the breathing when working with mind, brain, and muscle or when resting or asleep. The health follows the emotional state, for all the functions of the body act as the mind poises or unpoises. The teachers as a class are daily exercised emotionally in the most sensitively negative ways, and they are under a pressure that espe- cially undermines health. The doctors and clergymen as classes come next in a general way in this emotional line. The laborers and farmers as classes are least negatively emo- tionally exercised. Previous to the Civil War this was more pronounced than now, because their career, prospects were brighter. If poise, peace, self-control, cheerfulness, good-will had been equally present in these three classes, in spite of their peculiar tempta- 200 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL tions to negativity, the rejection rate would have been about the same for all classes. Nurses are not easily healthy if working steadily with patients. They must breathe more, relax, cultivate patience, good-will, dwell on the brightest condition and outlook if they would help patient and self most. It is not selfish to try to make oneself better that he may make another better. Mothers encounter much unhealthful vibration. Hence a mother ought to consider her surroundings, gird up her loins, put on the breastplate of righteous- ness that her soul may abide in peace and peace- ful work to the " building up " of all. Mediums, mind-readers, and clairvoyants are not usually in health. They are subject to states of mind, helpful or harmful, according to the kind of receptivity they must assume to accomplish their work. Mediums suffer much deterioration from their whole organiza- tion, being at times under very nervous nega- tive influences. Eiches, ease, luxury lead to inactivity every way, non-sympathy for others, lordliness, pas- INHIBITION 201 sive pleasure, and it often is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (the Needle's Eye Grate) as for a rich man to resist these negative influences. His kingdom of har- mony is made inharmonious, and so is his health, his wholeness. There is no necessity to be receptive to any influence but the best. This is scientific. From the indulgence of society, in conversa- tion, customs, acts, habits, beliefs that are negative, depressing, pessimistic, repressing, as shown by the foregoing rambling review, it is easily seen that reform in all these ways must take place if lack of health of all kinds is to be replaced by a rich supply of health. To repeat, conversation is regulated by the emotional states, and conversation in general indicates the wholesome or non-wholesome con- dition of body, mind, and spirit just as clearly as the emotions do, " For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. ' ' Emotional self-control is health. Emotional non-self-con- trol is non-health and disease. Inhibition is salvation. 202 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL Man's conscious, objective mental equipment or development is a loss or gain to him; if poise evolves, it is a gain; if non-poise, it is a loss. The lower animals have less conscious or objective mind, and therefore they have less possibility for good or bad development as to health, at least. Man has left the " Garden of Eden ; ' ' he cannot return ; he must not look back to less responsibility; he must avoid the attitude of Lot's wife if he would advance; he must pioneer bravely and successfully. If he weakens, fears his environment, he will melt down to the lowest level of life, as a pillar of salt may on account of its elemental surround- ings. Savages, wild men, " lower animals " have more health, in their measure, than civilized man in the main. Chiefly environment affects the lower animals for good or for bad, but the " upper animals " have this to encounter, and to encounter it with a negative, discouraged conscious mind is to do less nobly, to be less whole, than the " lower animals." " Work out your own salvation midst fear INHIBITION 203 and terror, for God is energizing in you both to will and to do for the sake of his approba- tion.' ' What were the fear and terror of St. Paul's times? Religious opposition, punish- ment, disgrace, death to all believers in the new " Way," and all the temptations of the flesh then as now prevalent. What are the fear and terror of to-day, preventing one from working out his salvation? Competition, hurry, worry, impurity, delight in riches. The bal- anced use of mind leading into spirituality is salvation. There is no chance in the universe or in one 's life. If we use God well, we are used well and are well. If we misuse him, we are misused and " there is no health in us." Unless we be- come as little children we cannot get the king- dom of heaven or harmony developed in us. To have the trust, fearlessness, simplicity, and love, like that of the model natural child, plus harmonious, intelligent development as time goes on, is to work out a salvation midst fear and terror, but the fear and terror will not find any room in our consciousness. 204 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL A Christian lady declared that she was so troubled with hurry that her health was rap- idly departing. She hurried and worried in her daily business, hurried home, hurried while eating, hurried to church, to Sunday school, hurried her pupils in class. She could not help it; it was no use to try. Her parents always hurried and worried, and she had from the beginning. She was asked if she believed there was truth in Jesus' declaration and invitation: " Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me ; for I am gentle and kind-hearted; and you will find rest for your souls; because my yoke is easy and my burden is light. ' ' She answered yes. The reply was made that if one cannot get rid of hurry, get self-control, then this declaration is meaningless ; for Jesus said in Palestine that he could cure people's bad habits if they would come to him, stay with him if necessary. He made good this promise practically. The truth he lived then can be imbibed now, and the same results of peace will follow, but we must make INHIBITION 205 a business of it ; there is no chance or accident anywhere. If the Church cannot verify this psychological and physiological statement of Jesus, why should a worldly man be attracted to become a church-member 1 This lady is hur- rying less, working and teaching better, and is realizing that there is a wide difference between accepting intellectually a truth and living a truth. Faith becomes faith and works. A suc- cessful career is open to us on no other basis. Free will, free agency, responsibility can have no meaning elsewise. One can become poised, peaceful while he is actively at work, physically and mentally, under all circumstances, and have that peace which " passeth understand- ing,' ' which at the same time gives energy, health. Another good lady said she had listened to twelve speakers during three religious meet- ings, and had made copious notes thereon. She said the exercises were very spiritual, uplift- ing, and restful, but that she had lost five pounds in flesh during the attendance, and was so tired that she was going to a quiet town to 206 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL recuperate. Here is the point. If one is poised, self-controlled, peaceful, he will be able to do such work, and not use any more energy than he daily and hourly generates. Tenseness con- sumes quickly. Of what use is Christianity, peace, and good-will in practice if a Christian cannot work within poised limits and be a strength by the indwelling, power-giving law of love? Let us have a living distinction physically, mentally, morally, spiritually between Chris- tian and non-Christian life. Or call all life more or less in tune with the Infinite, but surely more of this " tune " in the Christian than in the non-Christian. A Sunday-school worker declared that her good superintendent was a " perfect " man, and yet he was working himself to death and was ill now most of the time. Did he fret? Did he ever lose his temper in Sunday school? Oh, yes, he had reason for it. Did his children love him and trust him? Was there harmony all day and night with wife, mother-in-law? Well, he " made things go." He " believed in INHIBITION 207 law and order." He gave much to the church, money. Did he give poise, peace, harmony, gladness, gentleness, purity, mildness, patience, also! " Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. ' ' Remember, " glorify " means to give a grander character to the " Father " and to imbibe more of that character. To be a " perfect " man means business, and when it is a successful business, fretting and sickness will disappear as the " perfect " man appears. A person who said she had taken a course of twelve lessons in spiritual truth, of a noted teacher and lecturer, remarked that she under- stood what it was to be truly spiritual now, and that it was so lovely to go into the silence and dwell on spiritual thoughts. She, however, asked if she could be given a course in men- tal and physical poise through diaphragmatic breathing, as she found that she was very easily irritated by her husband and her children; so now she needed only poise to rectify that weak- ness. The reply given to her was that spiritu- 208 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL ality is poise with everybody, everything, every fact, and that it includes love. Efficient breath- ing will bring poise, but if one is perfectly spiritual he need pay no conscious attention to his breathing or his poise, for spirituality in- cludes adequacy in both. It is recorded that after his resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples locked in an upper room, in terror of the non-believing Jews. They were full of fear and disappoint- ment. He said to them, ' ' Peace be unto you. ' ' They soon recognized that it was Jesus and lost their fear and disappointment, for they felt gladness and safety were now theirs. They became overjoyed, hysterically so, and he again said, " Peace be unto you." Overjoy is as harmful as fear, and he thus taught them the lesson of spiritual poise. After he had told them they were in the world to do similar work to that he had been doing, and that they must do it everywhere, and that signs would follow them, signs of wholeness, he then " breathed (on them) and said unto them, ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' " Holy Ghost, holy spirit, whole INHIBITION 209 spirit are equally good translations. Whole spirit must be the God-kind, for God is spirit, and we characterize " Spirit of God " to be perfect love, gladness, peace, patience, — the fruit of the spirit. The disciples had just lam- entably shown no whole spirit, — first fear, then overjoy. Spirit, from spirare, to breathe, is related to breath thus: If one is spiritual, full of love, peace, purity, that state of mind induces perfect breathing. If one enjoys ade- quate breathing in an all-round way, he is spiritual. It used to be taught, and possibly is so taught now, that the Holy Spirit is some individual entity, a possession to be longed for, yet at times to be dreaded, to feel mysterious about, some even thinking that it made a noise in its passage into the converted. It is scientific to believe that one can be filled with the Holy Spirit only by a transforming process of the states of consciousness and subconsciousness by the renewing of the mind. The disciples had given away to fear, then to overjoy. They were told to receive whole spirit, fearless, lov- ing, uniform poise, self-control into their body, 210 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL mind, soul, spirit. The sin against the Holy Spirit is in not having or desiring whole spirit, poise, love, harmony, or even in objecting to the very idea of it in practice. Overjoy is as harmful as grief; it is not poise, nor whole spirit. Mrs. D.'s son was appointed by the President to a West Point cadetship. For a long time she had very earnestly wished for it. Three days after she received the news of her son's appointment she died. The medical attendant said that her death was due to the effect of the ecstasy she experienced. Death was gradual. The subconscious mind executed the unbalanced overjoy in her conscious mind through the sym- pathetic nerve system into stopping gradually the rhythm of the heart. Other organs were doubtless harmed, but the heart was the weak- est part of the bodily machinery. The Holy Spirit is in the emotions when they are controlled, healthful. In the overjoy, hys- terical gladness, or fear, there is only unholy spirit, unhealthful lack of wholeness. This kind of unholy holy spirit that sometimes in- INHIBITION 211 duces uncontrollable religious excitement, lead- ing often to insanity, falling down, frothing at the mouth, rigor of the body, cannot be whole or holy or self-controlled, and it disgraces Christianity. In Christian lands to-day many religious organizations indulge in or permit hysterical performances in revival meetings, prayer-meetings, in regular services. The descendants of the Jews who would not receive Jesus as the Messiah they looked for, are to-day, as a racial religious body, work- ing out and living as sane a whole spirit or holy spirit as (or saner than) the descendants of the Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, including all Christianized peoples. Let us reform this " Holy Spirit." Let us get and live the pure article as portrayed in the life of Jesus on earth. Christians have persecuted Jews. Jews have not persecuted Christians. This is a good test of whole or holy spirit. ' ' Let us hew to the line, no matter how the chips fly into our faces." The close relation of breath, efficient breath- ing to whole-spirit state of mind, that is, where 212 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL whole spirit is, there is whole breath or breath- ing; and the expression " he breathed (on them) " leads the author to refer to Notovitch's " The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. ,, This volume relates that Jesus was absent from Palestine in the wilderness from the age of about thirteen to twenty-nine years; that that time was spent with the Buddhists at Lhasa, Thibet, India, when they were living most spiritual lives ; that he went there by the cara- van route from Palestine. His life devoted there to the poor; the contemplative spiritual daily exercises in deep breathing, as is still a fundamental Buddhistic religious practice; his return to Palestine through Persia, where, by his love for and work among the neglected, he was threatened with death; his three years' labor in Palestine; his death and resurrection are also described. The document from which the record is taken differs but little from the New Testament record, and thus: Pontius Pilate secretly paid Judas Iscariot to bring about the death of Jesus, as he feared his gov- ernorship might be endangered by Jesus living. INHIBITION 213 He had Judas Iscariot privately put to death to cover his secret. The records in the Bud- dhistic convent at Lhasa are said to reveal all this. Whether this is fact or not fact, Jesus did spend this period of time somewhere before he sought John the Baptist. Many good people believe that the intellec- tual states of mind are of secondary impor- tance, that the spiritual states are the most important and reliable. This view comes about by splitting the states of consciousness and subconsciousness into intellect and spirituality. Can an idiot develop much spirituality? Spiri- tuality is a quality, not an entity, as we are viewing it, on this plane of life. The spiritually developed intellect is the important result, and the intellectually developed spirit is as impor- tant. When we trust to the leading of the spirit, we are simply following our best devel- oped, poised, whole-spirited mentality. The spirit as such may seem to lead one perfectly, but the leading of to-day is often pronounced a mistake by the best judgment of next year. There must be growth, improvement; there is 214 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL no healthful standstill. " Be ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your mind." We do " live, move, and have our being in him," but to us it is practically more or less God, as we are more or less in tune with the Infinite. Our union with him is simplicity in principle, variety in phenomena. There is a " survival of the fittest " going on now as much as, and more than ever, in the past as among the lower animals. Slowly changing environment in ages long ago and now have decided and decide largely what ani- mals could or can survive. Those who are now living most in hurry, worry, regret, gossip, jealousy, anger, hate are surrendering to an environment which brings about nervousness, heart failure, early death, less usefulness, less happiness. Those who live most in peace, courage, fearlessness, harmony, love are the " survival of the fittest," and tempting environment harms them not. Let us use our conscious minds uniformly, courage- ously. Let us see the signs of the times and INHIBITION 215 enter into the " City of Refuge," the whole spirit. It is very helpful to be in appearance and disposition just that which we like to see in others. Do we like to meet long faces, dis- couraging voices, woful telltalers? It is ill health for them and us. It prevents life's best work. We love to meet the cheerful, the cou- rageous, the kindly. It strengthens them and us. " Let us do as we would be done by." This way of acting in life will make us all practical, uplifting missionaries, home mission- aries for good, and without consciously realiz- ing it. Many think others have no reason or right to smoke, emit saliva, use profane lan- guage, to become intoxicated in public or else- where, but those who go about with sorrowful countenances are more unsanitary, more dis- agreeable, more unhealthful, more unpoised. By this exemplary living — " Others shall Take patience, courage, to their heart and hand From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all." 216 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL THE FOUNTAIN " Into the sunshine, Full of the light, Leaping and flashing From morn till night; " Into the moonlight, Whiter than snow, Waving so flower-like When the winds blow ; " Into the starlight Rushing in spray, Happy at midnight, Happy by day ; " Ever in motion, Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward, Never aweary ; " Glad of all weathers, Still seeming best, Upward or downward, Motion thy rest ; « Full of a nature Nothing can change, Changed every moment, Ever the same ; INHIBITION 217 " Ceaseless aspiring, Ceaseless content, Darkness or sunshine Thy element ; M Glorious fountain, Let my heart be Fresh, changeful, constant, Upward like thee I " — Lowell. CHAPTER VI THE SCIENCE AND ART OF HABIT FORMATION, CHAR- ACTER AND HEALTH BUILDING A physiological cell is a microscopic collec- tion of protoplasm with a central nucleus, other contents, and the enclosing wall tissue. There are about twenty-seven and a half trillions of these cells in each adult person. There are about nine hundred millions of these cells in the cranial brain. All these cells composing the body are formed by vital, chemical, elec- trical processes from the food, water, and oxy- gen taken into the body. The blood, food, and oxygen are worked over by the subconscious mind in its laboratories, helped or hindered by conscious thinking, into differentiated tissues. The tissues of the body are continually grow- ing or being replenished, and as constantly being worn out. The mind's building and tear- 218 HABIT FOBMATION 219 ing down tissue is the foundation of habit. Muscle grows or is built up, and wears out by use. Mind, subjective and objective, is behind or within the use, whether it is called instinct, reflex action, or habit, — mind is directing. The brain, a muscle perhaps, grows, is built up and wears out by use accompanied by mind action. Prof. Elmer Gates says, " Mind is the total- ity of the subconscious and conscious adaptive functions of the organism in interaction with the cosmos. " The evidence is complete that demon- strates that every mental activity creates a definite chemical change and a definite anatom- ical structure in the animal that exercises that mental activity, and that this is the modus operandi of animal growth and evolution, and that by this method more mind can be embodied ad libitum. The evidence is complete that shows every mentation also produces a definite effect upon the environment of the animal that does the mentating. Action and reaction are equal. Force cannot come from nothing. Men- 220 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL tation is a mode of energy, and the organism of the animal cannot create the energy of life out of nothing, but must receive it from the Great Eeservoir. But the conclusion that every mentation affects the environment is based upon direct testimony and quantitative measurement. Vary the mental activities of a unicellular organism and you will vary its structures, and the same is true of a multi- cellular dog or man. Mind underlies organic phenomena, and life is mind; mind-activity is the cause of evolution, and mind-embodiment is the goal. ' ' The cranial brain is convoluted. This gives more surface or cortex (mentation areas), as valleys and mountains have more surface than a plain, level, or spherical surface. The outer part is gray matter, the inner white. In a general way, the ingoing sensory nerves report from all over the body to brain centres in this gray matter, and the outgoing motor nerves from these centres perform the mind's deci- sions in all parts of the body. A sense impres- sion arrives by a sensory nerve at a brain HABIT FOEMATION 221 nerve-centre; the mind there mentates, thinks, reasons about the sensation, and executes its decisions through a motor nerve. Thinking also takes place after experience without this evi- dent sensory and motor apparatus. This brief description refers chiefly to the conscious mind and cerebro-spinal nerve system. Cell tissue in the nerve-centre brain struc- ture by thought action becomes a waste prod- uct going away in the blood to find exit from the body. Blood circulates through the nerve- centre brain structure, replenishing the worn tissues, building more cells. This building and unbuilding and increase of cells by mind usage, along definite, repeated lines, is habit, mind, and brain structure growth, development. Habits of thought and act are impressed into the mind subconsciously by the conscious mind. Mind works in every cell throughout the body. Every cell has its desire, aspiration, or des- peration. The brain nerve-centre structures will be considered more at length, but brain results are total body results as to cause and effect. 222 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL There are forty nerve-cell centres in the brain cortical structures for mind activities, menta- tions. Color, sound, taste, touch, smell, and many subdivisions of sense experience have their " headquarters " in these nerve-cell cen- tres, brain areas, or structures for mentation, growth, development. On the average, not more than ten per cent, of the possible, poten- tial cells in these brain structures are devel- oped. Some of the lower animals have been ex- perimented upon to prove that mind power, and these brain areas increase or decrease mutually. Two dogs, e.g., are chosen for the experiment. One is left to care for himself, the other is educated in color experience. By placing the dog's food under differently col- ored covers at different times, he is led to differentiate color-sensing. A red cover hides his food for a week, he having found it by turn- ing over covers till he discovers it. He will afterward go straight to the red cover as long as his food is put there, and once more when he does not find it there. He then turns over HABIT FORMATION 223 other covers till he finds his food, say, under a green cover, and he then goes straight to the green cover as with the red, and similarly with twelve to fifteen different colors and shades. During weeks or months of such practice, the color or visual brain areas are receiving more blood, wearing down, building up, and develop- ing more brain cells, and more mind for color discrimination evolves. After three months or more the brain areas of the educated dog and the uneducated one are examined. The brain centre location for color in the former dog may be nine times more developed than the cor- responding brain centres of the other dog. Three months' experience is named because a fairly active brain gradually wears out and rebuilds in three months, as possibly the whole body does. The finger-nail rebuilds in three months. Seven years used to be considered the time required to renew the body. Hustle seems to have invaded cell growth, too. Autopsies performed on the brain structures of men noted for mathematical, musical, and other development, show superior growth of 224 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTROL brain areas in the appropriate locations of the brain structures of such men as compared with the corresponding brain structures of men not at all noted for mathematical, musical, or other development. It is proved that brain growth and mind growth are about simultaneous, the increase of mind bringing forth increase of brain areas. Blood flows and builds in response to mentation and act. If there is no mentation, there is no blood flow, no building, no act. Repetition in mind, subjective and objective, and repetition in act, form habit and increase mind and brain structure within limits, perhaps, at present; but the possible convolutions in the brain sur- face, cortex, offer almost unlimited brain area. The ' ' act ' ' may consist in a muscle movement, or only in the movement of carbon and oxygen in chemically uniting at demand of thought. A thief in ninety days has been changed by steady application of this law of habit forma- tion to an honest man. Appropriate reading, discussion, association, surroundings are super- vised, much thinking is induced as to how he HABIT FOKMATION 225 feels when he is robbed or when he is treated fairly, till he feels which is the better for him; then how he thinks the other fellow feels when he is stolen from, or his rights of property disregarded. He becomes altruistic. He puts himself in the other fellow's place. His mind is thinking more honest thoughts than dishon- est ones, is building more honest brain cell structure, the old thieving tendency has no practice, and more and more moral cells are coming into use. The thief is reformed in mind and brain structure. His whole mind, conscious and subconscious, his whole body, every cell will vibrate to honest thought and act. A new career is opened. A new motive aroused. There is no forcing. Not even the consent for reform need be given if one can arrange satisfactorily the environment. " Give me the child till he is six years old," says one, ' 6 and you may have him thereafter. ' ' So powerful is the law of habit formation for good or for bad, making it so difficult to change unless subjected to special training. 226 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL Smokers can quit smoking gradually, if they have not will-power or desire enough to leave off at once. Let the person, whenever he smokes, dwell on all the advantages of non- smoking that he can think of, such as that his wife, sister, parent dislike the smoke smell from various points of view, that he is selfish in spending money thus just for himself, while at the same time he may get himself to believe that the nicotine is harmful to his blood oxy- genation, depleting him in some way finally. Three months of this kind of thinking will cause his desires for smoking to be so feeble that his motor nerves will decline to work his muscle even to take up the cigar. The old smoking-desire brain cells go out of business, mentally, physically, spiritually, are starved, while new non-smoking desire brain cells ap- pear and increase. The whole mind and the whole body have a new habit. This habit is stronger and stronger, more mind force, more and more cell force, as the delights of non- smoking increase. Insanity is cured thus scientifically. The HABIT FORMATION 227 insane person has indulged in thought and brain-cell growth of a certain tendency until he desires to kill all his relatives who he thinks wish to get his property. Change his thinking thoroughly long enough, and you change his insanity thought. Let him be put into a safe room willingly or unwillingly, but kindly. Dur- ing the day awaken thought through his five senses all that it is possible. Put before him beautiful colors, pictures, scenes, harmonious sounds, good music, add temperature and touch sense impressions, arouse the tasting and smell- ing powers in his eating. He has no time to build or replenish the insane cell growth. New thought with new structures arise and increase. He is sane. Must be. No choice. Criminals need reform, can be reformed, if we would go at the work scientifically as we do to learn the multiplication table. They are put together in an institution for years, with no definite opportunity for reform and with surroundings against them. The writer has had years of experience with private students in breaking up very trouble- 228 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL some habits of long standing, and his belief in the possibility of reforming the worst habits of life is well founded. A murderer will reform somewhere, some- how, somewhen, if it is true that all will finally work out a salvation. Why not reform him here? Scientifically, individually, by the laws of God now? We Americans are not pleased when we think that countries of the Eastern Hemisphere are sending us much of their worst element and not reforming their own people by better laws. The excarnate beings, among whom are some of our relatives and friends, must disapprove of the way we, the incarnate here, dump our worst characters (not always our worst) into the unseen realm. Why do not spirit mediums tell us more about this? Such news might lead to earthly improvement in this respect. Reincarnationists may say that murderers must gradually reform during many, more or less, incarnations, reincarnations, excarnations. Perhaps this is best, but science is making it possible for more advance to be made in one HABIT FOEMATION 229 incarnation than in many in the past. But murderers, all wayward people, little sinners included, can be reformed here and now if we would spend as much money on scientific edu- cative habit formation, on individual loving work, as is now spent on trials and imprison- ment. The period of expense for reforma- tive scientific teaching would be comparatively short. There are ways whereby safety to the public could be guaranteed while the educa- tional work was going on and after it was com- pleted. Some say the murder mania is a dis- ease. Well, disease can be eradicated. There are all degrees of insanity and of the murder- ous propensity. Where is the line to be drawn? Our whole educational system can be made many times more successful physically, men- tally, morally, spiritually, by applying under the most attractive conditions the scientific laws of habit formation, all-round mind growth. All education can become a joy, not drudgery, if correct motives be aroused, and they can in all cases be aroused in more or less time. The idea of teaching a dog in color 230 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL discrimination by associating it with food pleasure, needs of the body and mind, points the way to pleasant success, even with the seemingly most discouraging cases among criminals. A criminal is a criminal for lack of better motives, better possible career. A New Haven judge sentenced a seventeen- year-old boy to three years' imprisonment. The boy begged for a life sentence, as his ca- reer was so fixed by frequent but short impris- onments with other criminals in Massachusetts prisons. He had just enough good thinking left to prefer the prison forever to old tempta- tions to be met again if freed. This boy could easily be saved now. The average person can, by pleasant appli- cation, acquire nine times as much ability in any direction, as mathematical, musical, me- chanical, become nine times as patient, cou- rageous, cheerful, healthful, moral, spiritual, if he lacks these qualities. Some scientists be- lieve that cranium pressure on different parts of the brain cortex prevents development of certain mental qualities, as non-development HABIT FORMATION 231 of reason in an idiot's mind. The brain area, e. g. in the gorilla, where reasoning mentation would take place, shows but little development as compared with that of man. Successful operations, two at least, have been performed on a man and a boy, whereby enough cranial bone has been removed to allow brain and mind growth in a certain location, and insanity and kleptomania disappeared. But with more brain convolution possibilities and scientific application of mind and habit formation and cell increase, all hindered development can surely be remedied or very much ameliorated. Ninety-nine per cent., at least, of undeveloped mentality is caused by heredity and environ- ment of a kind that can be educated out scien- tifically. Let an idiot be faithfully trained alone by one person who understands life and mental development laws, for a year or more steadily, and a scientific " miracle " will be worked. The " incorruptible bodies " of the New Testament would be the results of scientific habit formation. The whole body can be built 232 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTEOL to the spiritual tune of the mind, soul. The New Testament teaches this habit formation law. " Seek and ye shall find," " Ask and ye shall receive," " Knock and it shall be opened," " Pray without ceasing," are all truly founded on this law. Formal transla- tion and interpretation have hidden the sci- ence in these quotations. Pursuing one domi- nant thought day and night cheerfully, with belief in one's power of self -development is habit formation with success ; it is prayer, and the " prayer of the righteous availeth much." If one is striving to reform and fails at times, he must take even more courage and use the strength thus saved that he may fail less and less in the future. These failures indicate that the good thinking and good cell-building are not predominating enough over the bad to bring uniform success. All traits of mind will help or hinder any selected trait which we are es- pecially reforming. When in the mind con- sciously and subconsciously asleep and awake, all mentation and cell-building are correct, there will be no failing, but perfection is the HABIT FORMATION 233 mark of God. If we live quite close to our ever growing ideals, we are successful. It is said that Jesus " was tempted in all points as we are, but without sin." Sin is living against right judgment. Evil may come from uncon- scious sin. Habits of thought and action can change very suddenly by some very strong motives being aroused, or by a mind that has cultivated much will-power in other directions. The great power felt does very quickly develop more brain cells, as quickly as the suddenness of the new hope. " Hope is an anchor to the soul." As the months go by, this " setting " becomes more and more firm. A boy formed the habit of whistling wher- ever he could whistle. He was sharply repri- manded by his teacher for whistling in school, whereupon he declared that he had not whis- tled, but that " it whistled itself." An old retired soldier, who had during so many years always come to immediate position at the sound of, " Attention! ", was walking home with some packages from the grocer's 234 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL under his arms, when an old friend cheerfully hailed him with, ' ' Attention ! ' ' The groceries fell to the ground. Habit did it. A pike and perch are put into the same ves- sel of water. They fight and wound each other. A glass partition is put into the vessel, sep- arating the perch from the pike. They attempt to meet " heads on; " they hit the glass par- tition and are stunned. In a few hours they cease to go toward each other. The partition is removed. The fish thereafter avoid each other. A new habit formed here very quickly. A strong motive in the memory was aroused. Frederick the Great caused buttons to be sewed on the soldiers' coat sleeves on top, near the wrists, to prevent the face being rubbed with the sleeves. Now the buttons on coats are sewed on underneath the sleeves of civilians also. No need exists for their presence there, but a habit or custom once formed is difficult to change. A former Emperor of Germany was walking one morning with a former Czar of Russia in the gardens at St. Petersburg. He noticed a HABIT FORMATION 235 soldier sentinelling a place where he could see no reason for it. He asked the Czar why the sentinel was there. The Czar did not know, but, his curiosity being aroused, he had the matter looked up. After several departmental officials, one after another, had been consulted without securing any information as to why the sentinel was placed there, it was finally dis- covered that two hundred years before, an Empress of Russia had, on discovering in the spring some snowdrops growing thereabouts, ordered a soldier to be stationed there to pro- tect the rare and delicate flowers from tres- passers. For two hundred years successors had been appointed, though no snowdrops had reappeared. Because we have thought and done certain things in certain ways is not a proof that we should continue to think and act in the same way. Be always ready to give a " reason for the hope that is in you. ,, The writer once carried a small clock in his hand from a lecture-room, intending to leave it in an adjoining room. When he had nearly 236 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL reached home, his eye informed him that it was still in his hand. His conscious mind corrected his subconscious mind, which was too fixed, and he returned the clock to the owner. He might, with reason, have been acused of theft. Habits can be too severely formed, can be too narrow, not wide-awake enough, the objec- tive mind not supervising often enough the sub- jective mind contents. It is possible to become too automatic. A bigot, a tyrant, do not change easily from bad to good thinking. They do not supervise, revise, past habits of mind, but let them have automatic sway. All things new are not even looked into. It is a dangerous extreme. All reform rests on the openness of the conscious mind to retain or reject any hab- its of thought and act formed in the past. There can be an extreme tendency to change. Training of all kinds is habit-forming. It is foundational and economic. Less oxygen and food are needed by one who thinks and acts in an habitual way, less carbon dioxide is formed, so long as the habit is an intelligent, altruistic one. HABIT FOKMATION 237 We are all bundles of habits and instincts. Habits are formed in this life here and now. Instincts are inherited and developed tenden- cies coming to us from ancestors and the orig- inal, God-started individual potential entity. Instincts in us are the results of habits in an- cestors. We may form a habit and transmit it to a son ; in him it will be an instinct. Pos- sibly in a majority of cases habits are devel- oped instincts, improved or made worse. The total heritage of a child is given by authorities as one-fourth from each parent; one-sixteenth from each of the four grandparents; one- fourth from more remote ancestors. The stored-up qualities of the subjective mind, whether they are called heredity, instinct, tendencies, habits, results of reflex action of lower or inferior nerve-centres, are a mental entity, force, seeking by the aid of conscious mind unification in the midst of variety. They represent what the mind has become by con- scious pioneering, subconscious environment effect in the race and the present life plus the share of the original, potential, God-given indi- 238 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL vidual entity. Kepetition of this mind-atom in the mental and physical, somewhere, sometime, somehow, has resulted in our present states of total mind. If reincarnational philosophy is true, it does not alter the laws of heredity, it helps to prove them. Instinct can be seen in the different gaits and original dispositions of people, in the smelling trait of the dog; possibly in the persisting appendix vermiformis and large colon in man, not now needed as in former ages. The subjective mind builds what it has gotten used to building, and will so build until environment and conscious mind alter the building. We do not yet begin to realize how much one can change his inherited parts or generate new ones by mind power consciously and scientifically applied, as is done among the lower animals and plants by themselves or by man. A snail losing an eyestalk grows another one ; a lobster, a claw. Man may profit by these hints if he can develop a subconscious chemist- building mind that can do as well as the lob- HABIT FORMATION 239 ster. Many instances are related in which it is proved that man and the lower animals have shown wonderful reproduction of parts. A man rides on horseback and sleeps while keep- ing his balance. This is not building a new organ, but it is an extension of subjective com- mand to bring about new strength. Affirming grand, hopeful, courageous states of mind in the early morning with deep breath- ing, assists to carry out these conditions during the day. These ideals are founded on the al- mighty law of habit. Husbands and wives who disagree disagreeably can become harmonious by this morning practice, adding " shaking hands " with each other, laughing together, saying some cheerful words, — even if this is begun in a mechanical way, much happiness and health will come. The habit grows. Habit is a cable, and we build it strand by strand. Decide consciously which are your desirable and undesirable qualities of mind and action, whether instinct or habit products; make up your mind to put the undesirable out of busi- ness by " setting up in business " the desira- 240 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL ble. Make it a glad work, just as one can learn farming, chemistry, piano-playing happily if lie will see the law of success ; use every motive for perseverance, dwelling on the good results to himself and others. The emotional laws must be taken advantage of in habit-form- ing, always positive, optimistic, substitutional, cheerful, otherwise it will be a sad habit that you form, which cannot be much improvement on the undesirable habit you are getting rid of, — it may be a worse one. Man can by his superiorly developed con- scious mind originate new traits in animals and plants. In a few years a hunting dog's prog- eny can be developed into house dogs and vice versa, — ' ' new breeds ' ' in all directions are possible. Different colors and shapes of flow- ers that are desired are easily produced. Animal and plant life change and have changed slowly in the past when left to them- selves and slowly changing environment, but when environment for them is changed to order by man's conscious mind, modification of the HABIT FORMATION 241 forms quickly follow. In this direction there is hardly a limit. Squirrels have worked out by long environ- mental influences the instinct to bury nuts in time of plenty for time of scarcity. Keep squir- rels in houses, feeding them regularly with pre- pared food, for generations; if nuts can be found at the instinctive time for the young, they will go through the form of burying the nuts in the rugs or floor. Blind instinct. Doubtless it would take millions of years for the squirrel to undo instinct: man could in- stantly leave off a useless habit or instinct, his reason directing him. Some dogs still go through the act of tramp- ing down the grass or underbrush for a place to lie in, as their ancestors learned to do, though they are preparing to lie down in the house in a place prepared for them. A hen sits on and hatches from the duck's eggs, ducklings. They soon enter the water and swim. The hen mother is puzzled and fright- ened at first. It is only after some time that she learns to watch them swim, standing at a 242 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL safe distance. Man qnickly adapts himself to changed surroundings. The hen might wait centuries. The lower animals might be called bigots, as they are so incapable of reform, of leaving off useless performances or of taking on new useful actions when unaided. Still there are some men and women who hold on to useless habits, practices, instincts; some races, as in religion, politics, farming, modes of locomo- tion. Many say, " I shall always do so and so because my parents, grandparents, ancestors did so." Ear muscles, scalp muscles, persist in many people, though man has developed other means for protecting his ears and head from insects. If man can change the habits, instincts, colors, shapes, sizes and the like, of animals and plants, he can much more easily and quickly change his own nature and that of others, and he could if he would go at the work as scientific- ally and persistently as he does with the animal and plant. In Chapter V. much has been said HABIT FORMATION 243 on how to inhibit wrong thinking, and hence to make and unmake habits. Hurry is a habit, or an instinct, or both. Three hundred years ago there was no hurry in the Englishman, whose descendants now in this country are full of hustling and hurrying and strenuousness. Habits have changed. New environment and new attractive opportunities have induced this change, perhaps partly by long distances to cover to " get gain," to suc- ceed, then the laws of imitation and the " asso- ciation of ideas " have taken root in the chil- dren and the children's children. The English at home have not taken on hurry and hustle during these two or three centuries. Habits can be changed, instincts, too, as here, by inci- dentally evolved motives. Worry is a habit or an instinct; breathe it away. Love is a habit or an instinct; cultivate it. We teach our children that they can do as we direct them, but we do not hold ourselves as respon- sible when we fail to live our own highest bid- ding or idealizing. The conscious mind is not forming habits 244 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL or is not usually active more than ten or fif- teen per cent, of the time. It so often lulls, reveries, ceases, sleeps, it is always " full of gaps." The subconscious mind works one hun- dred per cent, of the time, and it can be helped or injured only during this fifteen per cent, of the time by the conscious mind. It does no pio- neering work itself. One must be as practical and businesslike in reforming his mind as he would be in building his muscle, or as an athlete is in his training. One is as scientific as the other. The only dif- ference is in the quality of the mind and act performance. There is relative good and bad coming from a law, but law is law. One must know how a principle will always work to be able to plan his actions for success. If the law of gravi- tation should cause a chair to go up one day, over or down the next, no trust, or love, or suc- cess, or life could develop. Prayer, " going into the silence,' ' should be as practical as raising a crop of potatoes. There is a kind of prayer, a kind of " going HABIT FOKMATION 245 into the silence/ ' that may produce no crop, or a diseased crop. Health is a habit or a bundle of habits and instincts. The universe is a habit. Hope is a habit, but a poet has written, ' ' Who hopes is already fallen," which indicates that there is a higher habit than hope. Paul said it was love. Love abides. All other mind states are coming and going. Hope expects. Love is. The founder of Christianity spent forty days in the wilderness completing a perfect mastery over all negative tendencies, — habit formation of the highest type. Whether the record is his- torical or symbolical, the same lesson is taught. The parable of the ten virgins illustrates well, good, and bad habit forming. The five who always had oil on hand for needed use had success. The five that " ran short " of oil, having no habit of forethought, plan, system, met failure. But the chief point of the para- ble is that habit cannot be borrowed for the oc- casion. It is a process of growth, a fixture. ' i Go buy oil for yourselves. " To be very con- scious of the godlike law of habit is to " know 246 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL in whom we believe,' ' and to succeed. It is eternal life, or may be. One may say to grow in grace by consciously reforming here and there is hypersensitive work. The farmer knows what will advance his crop and what will harm it, but he is not hypersensitive about it if he is a successful farmer. We must not become discouraged by com- paring talents. If one represents a talent when he comes to earth, let him add to one good habit another good one. If he comes representing five talents, let him add to those, five more good ones. It is one hundred per cent, improve- ment, development in either case. Working in the vineyard for the same pay, whether the la- borer went to work at six, nine, twelve, or three o'clock, illustrates this " talent matter." We must be sincere, substantial, practical in all habit-forming, not simply wishing, but will- ing ; not simply being a wish-bone, but a back- bone; not simply wishing and thinking, but thinking and doing. Edwin Booth, from boyhood, trained himself HABIT FOEMATION 247 in all graceful standing, walking, and sitting attitudes. As an actor lie could give his whole attention to interpretation and impersonation, for his physical movements were perfectly cared for by his subjective habit so thoroughly formed. He easily outranked all who " played " with him, because their minds were divided, distracted, between their conscious physical movements and their conscious inter- pretation and impersonation. Concentration, or application of mind on a given subject, is habit. A healthful position of body, relaxed, mind at peace, receptive and cheerful, lead to the most successful concen- tration and true mind power. There can be no hustle, strenuousness, or hurry in healthful mind concentration. The breathing must be rhythmic, adequate, continuous. Concentra- tion, as such, should be scientifically, regularly practised. It underlies all successful habit- forming. So many are hustling, hurrying, worrying, as by habit, in everything, that poise is lost, strength is weakness, and no true advance in 248 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL life in the best sense is made. Forming the habit of poise alone, all other good habits will flow in naturally, easily. The five emotional laws of health have perfect exemplification when the subjective mind is eternally poised. ' ' Let us be wise in our day and generation. ' ' The following poem by J. G. Holland well illustrates habit forming, and is surely scientif- ically healthful : " Heaven is not reached at a single bound ; But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round. " I count this thing to be grandly true : — That a noble deed is a step toward God, — Lifting the soul from the common clod To a purer air and a broader view. " We rise by the things that are under feet ; By what we have mastered of good and gain; By the pride deposed and the passion slain, And the vanquished ills we hourly meet. " We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust, When the morning calls us to life and light, But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night, Our lives are trailing the sordid dust. HABIT FORMATION 249 " We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray ; And we think we mount the air on wings Beyond the recall of sensual things, While our feet still cling to the heavy clay. " Wings for the angels, but feet for men ! We may borrow the wings to find the way — We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray, But our feet must rise, or we fall again. " Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls ; But the dream departs and the vision falls And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone. " Heaven is not reached at a single bound ; But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round." CHAPTER VII HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY If one had to eat all the time as he has to breathe all the time, life would be a struggle, because attention to working and thinking while eating and breathing would be consuming indeed. And how could one converse? Even breathing, alone, is much interfered with by the average person while working. Can you think of an arrangement of organs that would permit breathing while swallowing, and con- versing while masticating? One is what he eats, breathes, and thinks. The lungs introduce the oxygen; the mouth, stomach, and intestines introduce the food and water into the blood, the union of the three. The exits for used food and oxygen are the lungs, pores, and kidneys. Life phenomenized is possible only by this exchange, this receiv- 250 HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 251 ing, using, giving out. An equilibrium among all these processes is health. One eats (puts into his mouth) his weight in food each month. The mouth is the most im- portant organ of digestion, for it starts all food rightly or wrongly. Its processes can be largely controlled by the conscious mind. It is not so with the stomach and intestines. In the coatings of the mouth are glands and vascular tissue receiving saliva and mucus secreted from the blood by that electro-magnetic motor plant, the sympathetic nerve system, run by mind, the subjective mind, the chemist mind, soul. All the processes of digestion and assimilation, whether in the mouth, stomach, intestines, or other tissues, are thus alike man- aged. The solid food can be broken down by the teeth and prepared for insalivation. The tongue can bring it more directly into contact with the mouth juices. Liquid foods should be retained in the mouth until they are insali- vated and enjoyed. Chemical changes, diges- tion, can thus be properly begun in the mouth. 252 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Starchy foods here chemicalize into sugary- products. Tea-tasters hold the liquid in the mouth, dwelling on the flavor reported by the taste buds. Saliva flows, "the mouth waters,' ' alka- lining takes place, the keen pleasure wanes, the liquid is ejected from the mouth. The tea- taster has no desire, at this stage, to swallow. As a last resort, but it is not advised, alco- holism can be gradually cured in this way: A little of the intoxicating liquid is held in the mouth, enjoyed as long as any taste or pleasure is received. The drinker then prefers to eject it rather than to swallow it, for the alkalined liquor offers no luring pleasure to the gusta- tory buds in the back parts of the mouth that induce the swallowing process. Much pleasure has been enjoyed in the mouth, but very little of the alcohol has gotten into the blood circu- lation. Drunkenness does not follow. Food masticated for pleasure begins to give more enjoyment, and the cure from harmful to help- ful material put into the body comes about per- manently. One can so masticate a raw onion HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 253 and swallow it that his breath will not carry onion odor. The onion in this case must be made by mastication and insalivation into a perfect soup, when all pleasurable taste ceases, followed by an insipid alkaline one. The swal- lowing will not be pleasure-giving, but as onion is so healthful, it can be swallowed for its own sake. The model way is to swallow as soon as the waning pleasure of taste in the foremouth becomes subconsciously less than the expected greater pleasure in the back-mouth and phar- ynx. The swallowing act is the climax taste pleasure. Mastication does more than help in- salivation. It draws more blood to the mouth parts, assists in forming better saliva and more of it. It aids the heart in causing less resist- ance to the pulsing of the blood. It leads to better formation of the jaws, mouth shape, mouth muscles, in preventing adenoid and ca- tarrhal conditions. The growing child espe- cially needs much mouth exercise. Persons living largely on milk have heart and ear troubles. If one has digestive troubles, a great aid, if not finally a cure, is to attend pleasur- 254 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTROL ably to retaining in the mouth all foods till a soup consistency takes place. Milk, for in- stance, must be sipped, be enjoyed, and " tarry awhile.' ' No rule about " so many chews," or so many seconds for mouth work should exist. Let enjoyment of the food, yes, conscious pleasure in its taste, at least for a few days or weeks at meals, if one needs an improved appetite, be the rule. The subjective mind will do the rest well and best after a little time of conscious eating. If one will cheerfully, pleasurably eat, he is poised, he will breathe better, all the digestive juices will be better formed, all digestion will go forward better and better unto perfection. The effect of the poised, cheerful, pleasurable mind state brings about all the positive emotional results that have been before stated. " Whatsoever you do, whether you eat or whether you drink, do it all to the glory of God." What is more to " glory " than to build well body and mind? After a time " watering of the mouth " will be a correct guide as to what is best to eat. HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 255 Does the reader think this too physical, ani- malish? There are at least five sense organs, eye, ear, nose, mouth, skin. The eye pleasures, as in looking at nature or a painted picture, we delight in. The ear music we cultivate. The same practice should be followed with all the so-called physical senses. Enjoying a pic- ture is not too physical, neither is enjoying food. One need not look forward to, nor back- ward upon, imagined food tastes. This con- scious training for a normal from an abnormal appetite need not be conspicuous, need only be known by the practiser. Conscious enjoy- ment of the food while it is in the mouth is the secret of the success. After a time one need not, will not, be so conscious of the pro- cess, because the subconscious mind will be so well educated in this line that normal eating will continue of itself, but the best digestion can be obtained by this conscious pleasure, just as a walk is more exhilarating when the sce- nery and air are enjoyed. Practice in seeing all there is in a picture soon makes the process less conscious, but not less receptive. 256 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL The mouth is the only seeable or regulatable part of the alimentary canal, so cultivate this " sacred portal " in its divinest product. The saliva that flows while one is eating thus poised is bacteriacidal and a perfect rinser and clean- ser of the teeth. When the food is not properly insalivated, bacteria alive may pass into the stomach. The gastric juice of the stomach in such a case is not sufficiently bacteriacidal. The intestinal juices and alkaline blood are said never to be wholly bacteriacidal, so the sentinel mouth, being unfaithful, the citadel is taken by the enemy. The inefficiently used mouth and stomach digestive juices also make the spleen, pancreatic and intestinal juices, bile, and blood more non-vital. Be true to your mouth digestion and success will follow. When a poisonous acid is taken into the mouth, much more saliva than usual flows ; the parotid glands, then emptying earward into the mouth, add their secretions to the sublingual and submaxillary gland products, to dilute the acid and diminish the danger. This helpful act is said to be due to reflex action, but the HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 257 subconscious mind is doing it all, causes the reflex action. We build better than we know. Appetite ought to be hungry. WThen the body is about to lack protoplasm for further work, if at all normal, it, the subjective mind, will ask for food, — then is the time to eat. Wild animals, wild men, the Simians, do thus. To eat three times per day because meal-time comes, may be hurtful or helpful, according to the physical needs. But it is often a general inconvenience to have meals irregularly, yet one can eat little at each meal, or vary to suit the needs. Do not eat by an unvarying rule of time and quantity. It is best to eat only when hungry. This way brings quickly better health in body and mind. One at least need not eat between meals. Apply the eight hour a day labor law to the digestive apparatus, and it will not " strike.' ' WTien one's appetite is normal and instinctive, it will decide what is best to eat, how much to take, when to take it, how much insalivation is needed, and when all is ready for swallowing into the stomach, and all this will be done in highest pleasure. In such a 258 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL condition, some particular simple food will be desired, preceded, accompanied, and followed by " watering of the mouth." One's whole body and mind becomes thus grandly vital and expressive. An appetite that is vitiated and fickle indicates a discontented mind and body; there will be an " all-goneness " sensation throughout the system, a craving at the stom- ach. The feeling is all indefinite, and such an appetite will accept something, anything, to stop or alleviate these indigestive sensations. It is a pleasure while training for a normal appetite to test consciously, occasionally, the correct suggestive ability of the subconscious chemist mind. Let the eye and nose and all senses possible take what note they can of the different foods displayed, or even thought on. If successful, or if the food is there that is truly needed, you will recognize certain food that will quickly make the " mouth water," and if you masticate it, sweet appeasement will immediately follow. You will note that certain other food suggests no watering of the mouth or any pleasure. Follow more and more the HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 259 growing guide. Those who have fasted know how, during the first meal after the fast, they enjoyed the sweet satisfaction of a true appe- tite, hunger, and how the insalivation was pro- longed, and swallowing did not occur until all was ready. Enjoyment and " watering of the mouth " while the food is in the mouth, or even before, are the healthful conditions of eating, and swal- lowing must be natural or just on time. This all means that one must or will eat in cheerful- ness, poise, kind-heartedness, light-heartedness, a salvation state of mind. There will be no hurry, worry, hustle, faultfinding; concoct- ing dishes to tickle the palate will not even be thought of. The stomach, after such mouth work as indi- cated, can easily, pleasurably, all consciously, yet subconsciously to one, make over its chemic contents with gastric juice, hydrochloric acid, into chyme, a milky consistency, suitable to enter the intestines for further and emulsory changes by aid of the intestinal and other juices, as bile, that it, as chyle, may permeate 260 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL through the intestinal wall coatings into the mesenteric gland, into the thoracic duct, into the left sudelavian vein, into the blood circula- tion in which it meets the oxygen that comes there through the lungs. Blood is thus formed, body-building being the subconscious aim. If too much food goes to the stomach, not enough gastric juice can be supplied for all of it. The blood is devitalized, partly by trying to furnish enough of the acid for too much food; all the food is not needed by the body; the excess is a nervous burden to the digestive apparatus. Such gastric juice is reduced in quality till it is not bacteriacidal, and the intestines are open to attack. If mastication is thorough and the taste thoroughly enjoyed, the stomach will " water," its juices will flow at their best into the food from its glands. The bile, pancreatic juice, spleen, intestinal juices, will all act in like good manner. It behooves us to consciously assist the subconscious mind that is directing all these chemical changes and merely gladness and en- joyment of the food may make the difference HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 261 between digestion and indigestion. " I call on you, brethren, by the divine mercies, to prepare your bodies a holy, living sacrifice, well pleas- ing to God, your rational service. ' ' The stomach cannot well do its work and that of the mouth, too. Their work is largely dif- ferentiated. The stomach cannot grind and alkaline well. The mouth can. The small in- testines cannot well do their work and that of the mouth and stomach. When they attempt it, one may have intestinal indigestion. When a piece of solid food, as meat, passes into the stomach unprepared, it may cause fer- mentation, gases, and pain in trying to pass out of the stomach through the pylorus, the outlet, before it is properly ready. The sub- jective mind, by reflex action, finally may allow the solid to pass into the smaller intestines, and still undigested it may reach the caecum, the vestibule to the ascending colon, where is located the appendix vermiformis. By pres- sure and clogging here, the appendix may be so twisted, constricted, and even filled, that blood circulation in its walls may be so reduced 262 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL that inflammation and catarrh will follow. This is appendicitis. Gastritis, bronchitis, and all the " itises " are similar conditions in the corresponding organs as to efficient blood and its circulation. The condition of mind that leads to imperfect mastication, which is usu- ally hurry, worry, hustle, acts badly on all the functions. The blood will fall below twenty- five per cent, of oxygen. The fermenting food in the colon will increase bacterial life; these animalcules will soon reach the blood circula- tion, and the whole system will show disease. All the negative results of the emotions will be in full force. Plato said, " From the kitchen come all our woes." It might be revised to, " From the mouth come all our woes. ,, Masticate, insalivate, thoroughly all foods with delicious enjoyment, and appendicitis will not appear. It is not what we eat, but what is digested into the blood that affords life. Within limits, the less one masticates and in- salivates, the more he eats, and the more one masticates and insalivates, the less he eats. HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 263 Stomach craving is not a trustworthy sign of real hunger, nor is stomach fulness a true sign that the body is well fed. The less one " tickles the palate," and the more he tickles the stomach and intestines, the better eater he is. " Tickling the palate " does not mean simple, cheerful, enjoyable eating, but a look- ing after new tastes and pleasures as such, which leads to overeating, insufficient insaliva- tion. Tickling the stomach and intestines would be delighting them by the mouth's doing its work cheerfully, enjoyably, thoroughly. One working into a normal appetite will soon find himself, without consciously planning it, eating only a half or a third as much food as formerly with his vitiated appetite. Under an abnormal appetite, much of the food eaten does not reach the blood ; it largely leaves the body as faeces. Under a normal appetite, eating one- third the usual amount, nine-tenths of it gets into the blood. Fermentation and gases will cease. The faeces will be odorless, and not more than a tenth as much. The contents of the colon will not be fermentable and bacteria- 264 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL producing. At Yale College and other places experiments with all classes of men show that the natural reduction of food to one-third the usual quantity increases the strength from thirty-five to one hundred per cent., the weight remaining the same. Athletes have to " train," omitting certain kinds of food, quit- ting smoking and drinking stimulants. Sim- ple, natural one-third eaters do not " train." They are in training all the time. Mr. Horace Fletcher, a literary gentleman past middle age, took the ' ' varsity ' ' crew work at Yale with the freshmen. They were three-thirds eaters, Mr. Fletcher a one-third eater, living on seventeen cents per day. He lost no weight during the seven days training, had no illness, was in as good trim at close as at beginning. The fresh- men were troubled physically, rested some from work, lost weight, were not in as good condition at close as at beginning. That harm comes from overeating is proved beyond a doubt, but no one overbreathes. If one eats more leisurely when poised, he loses no time thus, for he has the same time to eat HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 265 a one-third quantity that others have to eat the three-thirds quantity. One sees how housekeeping expenses can be reduced, how the servants may be underworked rather than overworked. The Japanese are perhaps the best example of all-round success which accompanies or fol- lows fairly correct nutrition, scientific breath- ing, poised thinking. Their Buddhistic relig- ious practices include deep breathing. Their food is simple, as a whole, much of it uncooked and from the vegetable kingdom. Their chil- dren eat, in a general way, what their * ' mouths water ' ' for, and they are not ordered to " eat what is set before them, asking no questions for conscience' sake." Their be- havior, as a nation, during the war with Eus- sia, shows that their living methods produce great strength, endurance, health of all kinds. Strictly speaking, there cannot be health of one kind only any more than there can be a perfect working heart in a body whose liver is dis- eased. " Eat what is set before you, asking no ques- 266 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL tions for conscience' sake," followed strictly, may, in a way, seem to make it easier for the housekeeper, the parents, but this is a short- sighted view. The same motive leads us to give peremptory orders in general to children, to everybody, and not to make reasonable re- quests, — requests that make ladies or gentle- men or poised people of all or of more than the fiat way does. Here is a personal observation: Little Miss D. was recovering from a severe cold. She did not want any roast beef at dinner. She wished some salted almonds only. She must eat meat and some of all the courses, else she could have no almonds. But almonds would not be good for her, too rich, hard to digest. By some convincing private conversation with the parents, the daughter was allowed on the next occasions to eat almonds only, which she still desired, but she was to be as long in eating the almonds given her as the parents were in eating all the courses. Cheerfulness, no self- consciousness, excellent insalivation and mas- tication necessarily followed, and a new-found HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 267 enjoyment. Kesults were marvellous. The hint worked well as to other foods. Less colds, less severe; appetite keener, languidity a stranger. It has been proved that negative emotions affect badly the total organism. Note in the following how these emotions do emphatic work during the special times of eating and digestion. The X-ray experiments on animals, notably the cat, during meal-time, reveal that while the cat is happy, purring, the digestive juices flow well, the peristaltic movements of the stomach and intestines necessary to digestion go on rhythmically; but when the cat is in any way crossed, as by pinching her tail, imposing on her kittens, all the before mentioned digestive activities immediately cease. Digestion stops. This may be acute indigestion. When the cat is made peaceful again, all goes well in the digestive work. Man is more emotional than the feline species, and his digestion suffers more under similar conditions. Two dogs of like disposition are fed at the 268 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL same time on the same kind of foods, one being kept angered during the meal and for two or three hours afterward, the other being kept in a very happy mood. After the experimental time is over, the stomachs being examined, there is found no food in the stomach of the happy dog; all is digested and has gone into the intestines or blood, but in that of the an- gered dog all the food is there, undigested. Man is more emotional than the canine species, and suffers much more severely under similar circumstances. In all these effects the reader will recognize the laws of the emotions working their effects. The breathing of the angry dog and the cat at once becomes lessened and all the train of bad functioning follows. A physician gave two dogs their breakfasts, like food, under like conditions. One was put into the kennel, the other for several hours ran into the country for a long distance with his master who made a business call by carriage. On returning he examined the dogs' stomachs; the kennel dog's breakfast had passed on into HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 269 blood, that of the running dog was still in his stomach, showing no signs of digestion. Why? Both dogs were happy. Not a case of emo- tional effect. The running dog used all his blood sparable in his active muscles, digestive juices could not be generated, digestion could not go on. The blood of the resting dog could generate sufficient digestive juices and his food digested normally. It is said that Henry Ward Beecher used artificial means, as a warming-pan, to keep his feet warm while he thought out his sermons and wrote his literary productions. His thinking drew much blood to the head to replenish brain waste and his feet were cold from the lack of it. He died of apoplexy. One ought to learn from such experiments and observations that while eating (and at all times) he should be happy, cheerful, kind- hearted, and that to engage in strenuous activi- ties, with mind or muscle, immediately after eating, is certain sin, evil. Serious reading while eating is anti-digestion. If one must hasten for the train, running for it, he can get 270 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL a few moments rest by eating less, or at least, he can hasten for the train in great peace, good breathing, gladness. This will conserve very much the energy of the body. It is easy here to prove that sorrowing, re- gretting, mourning, weeping, are ungodly pas- times. They can kill the body very quickly if one indulges in them keenly, consciously ; e. g. acute indigestion. Any organ can have acute malperformance of its function, as the heart ceasing to beat, the liver ceasing to secrete and excrete bile. The X-ray proves beyond a doubt that it is deathward to indulge in any negative emotion during the eating, and what is true during the eating process is of course true all the time on all the functionings, as digestion may and assimilation does go on al- ways. One says she feels better after a good cry. So does one feel comparatively better after having been lost in the woods, to find his way out of them, but it would have been better not to lose his bearings. St. Paul says in Ferrar Fenton's version: " For I have learned in whatever state I am to be master of myself.' ' HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 271 It is not here declared that any one is practis- ing perfect poise or that he can perfectly do so, for that would be to be a god, but it is claimed that there is no limit to what each one can do as to relating himself poisedly to all law, the emo- tional states, in all directions. If it is wise to weep while eating, it is foolish to think that God can even permit us to work out our salva- tion, for it cannot be done that way. A noted lecturer and Christian college professor re- cently said publicly in Boston: " A dyspeptic has neither faith, hope, nor charity. He may be a saint, but he cannot be a holy man. Holi- ness, haleness, wholeness, health are derived from the same root-word." There have been verdicts given by juries based on expert testimony on digestion as to which of two persons was murdered first, as father and mother, to decide whether the prop- erty should go to the paternal or maternal heirs. The advancement of digestion, the two persons having eaten at the same time, is not a true test of who died first. The different emotional states of mind existing in each dur- 272 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL ing the eating and until the killing, could make minutes ' or hours' difference in the advance- ment of the stomach's work. Not only emotional states as such, influence digestion, but as all surroundings influence the mind emotionally, every vibration around us through any sense organ or by a general sense, affects us kindly or unkindly. To eat in the woods on a picnic is to have good digestion. Gladness, varied scenery and " associations " are uplifting mentally and digestionally. The shape of the dining-room, the style of the fur- niture, the color of the walls, and the like, make, with some very weakly emotional people, the difference of digestion and indigestion. Personal experience has shown some students to be so delicately affected that they could not do anything at first, not even take a deeper breath, until all shades had been drawn just so, furniture rearranged differently, colored charts readjusted or removed. This extreme habit soon changes for poise under scientific attention to one's ways. Factories, school buildings, homes, remedial HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 273 institutions, could be made along broad lines, much more health-giving, just in the matter of shape and color, scientifically attended to. It is said by somewhat of an authority in physiology and psychology that a person in- dulging much in eating red beets, grows jeal- ous ; eating green peas, joyous ; carrots, mild ; turnips, despondent, mad. The chemical in- gredients in these, complementing the colors, produce these effects. Another authority says that one who lives much among purple surroundings becomes mad; scarlet, mad and desirous of killing friends and relatives; blue, as if drugged; green, soothed; yellow, hysterical; white, maddened, dazed. Some of these results were reached by much confinement in rooms of these colors, which would heighten or vary results from the emotional restraint effect. By living and moving freely among mixed color-sur- roundings, one color predominating here, an- other there, and by different associational ideas, with some .attention to scientific plan- 274 HEALTH THKOUGH SELF-CONTKOL ning as to shape and finish, — health vibra- tions are much favored. An oblong room, 1x2, or V/ 2 x 2, suggests freedom; a circular room tires, no end; a square room savors of confinement, strictness. Music at hotels during dining hours may help or hinder digestion according to the sentiment aroused by the music. Negative music would lead the diner to order less from the menu; positive music, arousing, would lead to ade- quate orders. No suggestion is made that the music can be adapted to influence orders to the full money and health limit. It is surely better to have bright music than dull or sad during the eating time, if we must have music then at all, but why have any? Healthful eating re- quires the cheerful attention of the eater to his alimentary business in hand. Light, cheer- ful conversation, laughter may well attend the meal. Earnest attention will cause too much blood to go to the head, drawing from the ali- mentary needs. When diners try to converse learnedly; listen to music, good or bad; ad- mire pictures, furniture; scan the people; try HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 275 to hear all that is said, in spite of the drown- ing music tones ; superintend the glad function of eating, all at the same time, life becomes very strenuous, and results digestively are dis- appointing, to say the least. Why not listen to music while reading or examining art prod- ucts? One thing, in a general way, at a time, and that thing well attended to, is best. Notice people at the dining-table scowling, trying to make their neighbors hear their remarks while they are listening to the music. Before the meal, between the courses, at the close, the music would be better, but if music must ac- company the eating, then converse not, only eat during the music parts. This matter may seem trivial, but when waking life is so filled with hustle, if one will rest a little his mind at these times, he may keep away nerve exhaus- tion. The Lord's Supper, the eucharist, may be a means of health or non-health. If it is par- taken of in any emotion as sorrow, regret, it is, must be detrimental to the Christian life, health. Partaken of in gladness, peace, grati- 276 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL tude, love of and for the grand life of Jesus lived on earth (but with no sorrowing for the world's most successful death), it will be a royal, lordly, strengthening supper. The blood and the mind and the body thus can scientif- ically, in a grand way, take on and in the strength of the founder of the commemorative repast. Can one drink the cup He drank? Not if he sorrows while he drinks to the victory of the life and death of Jesus. At the eating-table many parents make all their corrections of the children's mistakes, derelictions, disobediences, in scolding, negating, repressing tones. These same parents may have preceded the meal by " asking a blessing " on the food, often per- functorily. Then this blessing is followed by 1 ' cursing ' ' the food, for they make its health- fulness to the body less and less, or even harm- ful, by persisting, tense attitudes in their cor- rections. Such parents show greater non-self- control, worse behavior, by thus going against God's laws of digestion, than the sons and daughters do by their careless disobedience and delinquencies toward their parents. Let glad- HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 277 ness, kind-heartedness prevail always at the table, at least. It should prevail everywhere. Let there be some other time for tense correc- tions. If we were what we desire our children to be, we would never be tense with them. What we eat and breathe make our blood, and how that breathing takes place and how the blood is made, and how stored in the body for use, all depends on the state of our minds while we eat, — for better or for worse. In many families hurry is the standing order for all the day and night, but it often is especial hurry at the table. Children and all are hur- ried up in the morning; hurried to breakfast; hurried through it ; hurried to school or work ; hurried home to dinner; hurried on errands and to school; hurried home from school; to music lessons ; dancing lessons ; work ; school lessons; supper or dinner; then to lessons, or hurried to play some games or to attend some concert; finally hurried to bed; hurried to sleep ; hurried to sleep all they can. One feels like asking the merciful God to preserve us from the death-dealing results of this way of 278 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL living, but He cannot change cause and effect. " He changeth not." He leaves it to us to keep the law, not to break it — yet we do not break or keep the law, it breaks or keeps us. " Died of quick lunch " would be oftentimes a true epitaph. A gentleman who has worked his way up in a noted New England manufacturing company left school at fourteen years of age. It was planned that he should go through college. During his fourteenth year he developed nausea and vomiting. These occurred espe- cially mornings on his way to school, only on school mornings. Parent nor physician could allay the trouble. He was obliged to quit school. He went to work in the mill. In a con- versation with him it was learned that he had not had nausea since his leaving school, and not before that last school year. His last teacher was a male teacher whom he hated and would not care to meet again ; all his previous teachers were ladies, and he loved them all, their very names. He was an emotional child, and his dread on his way to school to meet one HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 279 he feared so affected his sympathetic nerve sys- tem through his total mind, that the stomach lost its rhythm, was convulsed, and ejected the food. This would also mean that all the effects of the emotional laws were taking place in his system for non-health. Many a person digests his breakfast, lunch, and dinner after he has retired to rest at night. During his meals and between them he is tense, hurried, worried, pushed, sorry, scolding, and the food remains a " dead weight " in his stomach until rest or " sleep, nature's sweet restorer,' ' permits digestion to go on — unless nightmare should be in his dreams, then in the morning he is despondent, appetiteless, yet needing food in his blood, but not in his stom- ach and intestines. Does this way of living in any way pay? It is a failure in the most em- phatic sense. The reaction of such a nerved state on the mind is still more despondency and weakness. Laughter, even mechanically started, will help digestion much right here in this chronic state of indigestion. " Laugh and grow fat." 280 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL " Fat " used to be considered a sign of health. 1 ' Grin and bear it ' ' suggests laughter 's worth. Man is the only animal that laughs consciously. He suffers more from his conscience, emo- tional errors, than the lower animals do, but he has the rectifying laugh to offset this defect. He ought to use it. In laughter the diaphragm, not the ribs, move up and down, activating the stomach and all the digestive organs, including lungs and heart. Authority says the dia- phragm makes three hundred movements down and three hundred up, or six hundred down and up during a minute, or thirty-six hundred during an hour. Such activity will arouse forces enough to digest any meal. With just these associational good results of laughter, is it strange how quickly even the sound of laughter makes one feel better? If any one says he has nothing in his life about which he can feel cheerful, or laugh, let him remember this fact : ' ' A lady ninety years of age had grown more cheerful and thankful as she grew older, finding she felt better in such mood. Her seeing and hearing were defective, but not HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 281 decreasing. She believed that if she had al- ways been more thankful and glad she would have preserved better her eyes and ears, and she made use of this belief to establish her in gladness. She was poor in property. A physi- cian asked her how she managed to be so cheer- ful all the time. She replied that she had many things to be thankful for, the chief one being that she had two teeth left and they were op- posite to each other, giving her such pleasure in mastication. ' ' Addison says: " Cheerful- ness is the best promoter of health, and as friendly to the mind as to the body." The body is composed of at least fourteen elements: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, chlorine, sodium, fluorine, iron, silicon, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, either in simple or combined conditions. A potato grows well if it has appropriate surroundings and has within its reach certain elements to imbibe of which it is composed, as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and we do well if we are well environed and can present to our ali- mentary canal and lungs the fourteen named 282 HEALTH THBOUGH SELF-CONTEOL elements necessary to the human body, to be imbibed into the blood in the right propor- tions; if not, then like the potato, we shall droop and die. We must admit that our strength comes from everywhere. Mind alone now is not all that must be reckoned with. One cannot breathe carbon dioxide alone, and live in the body, at present at least, or he does not now do so. Some day mind and body may be one, and one vibration, as suggested by St. Paul in the resurrectional philosophy, but now the mind surely builds its body out of definite ele- ments which are ' ' modes of motion. ' ' As long as we are in the embryotic stage, an osteopath may remove a lesion in the body's vibration more quickly and easily than a Christian sci- entist or a mental scientist can ; a surgeon may set a bone for reunion ; a physician diagnose a lack of phosphorus in the system and prescribe the right food, better than the metaphysician can. " All things work together for good to him that loves the Lord," loves all law of the Eternal One. Let us use all betterment agents, only with- HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 283 out fear, believing all help is from God in the broadest sense. An iron vibration may be needed in a certain person, it being absent, and no mental treatment does now supply an iron vibration, yet it may in the future, and it is not denied that it never has in the past supplied its equivalent. But let us not drown, waiting for a straw of the desired color. Doubtless many a death comes about because the body has become exhausted of some one or more elements, the food lacking these for a time. Scientists are finding out just what elements, and in what proportion, form the bodies of birds, rabbits, starfishes, and the like, in their best living conditions. They can by the syn- thesis of the right elements in the right pro- portions, under appropriate chemical, thermal, and electrical conditions, produce the corre- sponding animal in embryo, at least. This surely indicates that definite elements in dif- ferent amounts must be present in the body to permit the animal to be at his best. Then eat a variety, not necessarily at one meal, but during the day, that the body may 284 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL receive its God-appointed consistency, its evo- lutioned " survival of the fittest " material. Eat what is proved to ' ' sit best, ' ' alimentarily speaking. Form a normal appetite and all will go well, but one must see to it consciously that his food has the fourteen elements in it, if he discovers any weakening deficiency in himself that cannot be gotten easily rid of by the best thinking, breathing, and eating conditions. Moreover, the absence or excess or insuffi- ciency of certain salts or chemical ingredients in the blood, in the red corpuscles especially, prevents the oxygen from the lungs being prop- erly absorbed by the blood and from being taken to all parts of the body for use, and like- wise the same conditions of constituency of the blood may prevent the absorption of the carbon dioxide where it is formed by muscle action and thought, and thus this poison waste cannot be carried to the lungs and out of the body. One may breathe and breathe with his lungs, or try to do so, and yet feel suffocated, unsatisfied, lose consciousness or die from such HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 285 a food condition. We are surely what we eat, breathe, and think. If one will cultivate a royal, subjective mind (normal appetite will indicate it), that subject- ive, subconscious condition will select and use the right elements, proportionally too, if the fourteen elements are presented to the alimen- tary canal; and the normal appetite will sug- gest what the body needs. The alkalinity and acidity of the blood will be supervised properly when the chemist builder, subconscious mind, is serene and has within its reach all the elements in sufficient quantities. It cannot build a wooden house without lumber, nor a stone house without rock. If one prefers, he can test or have each day his blood tested as to its acidity and alkalinity and thus know fairly well how to vary his food, in- gredients. This is not as spiritually advanced as when food, so to speak, cares for itself and the blood is the result of poised living. It is not of so much importance that we eat a par- ticular thing or do not eat it, as to how we eat it and to the variety eaten. 286 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL Twenty-five dietarians are said to have dined together. Each unknown to the other was to cross out all the dishes he considered harmful as food. The menus were examined. Each and every dish was crossed out. Of course, some dishes were cancelled by many of the diners, some only by one or two. How many meals a day shall we eat? If we are going to be so tense, hurried, and wor- ried that no digestion will take place until the peaceful evening comes, it might be better to eat only one meal per day, and that one near the evening. Amount of work done, physical and mental, the emotional states we are in, the kind of occu- pation, ought to decide how much we need to eat and how often to eat. All any one needs is enough of all elements to do his thinking and work with plus something for growth if grow- ing, and enough extra for the body's repair as a machine. More than this is a nervous drag. Why we should not eat unless a little hungry is clear. The various emotional states alter the HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 287 amounts of food consumed. The intellective thinking and muscle use, vary the consumption. A man with a hateful disposition consumes more food as such than a man with an even, kind disposition. Hibernating animals live on stored-up food, breathing just enough to keep physical life going. The frog in the mud " keeps house " in the winter very inexpen- sively, no work, no thinking, no eating, pos- sibly but very little breathing. In cataleptic states, food and oxygen are at a minimum or even zero quantity. The heavy muscle and brain worker must have much oxygen and food to keep well. The typical work of the lungs, as such, is to administer oxygen to the blood and receive carbon dioxide from it. This work can be all subconscious. Consciousness can increase or decrease this usual rhythm of quantity. The lungs have no substitute. The stomach gener- ates and receives gastric juice for food diges- tion. It will take no substitute, successfully. The liver secretes bile. It resists charity. "We may administer pepsin and glucose, and the or- 288 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTROL gans that are in us to secrete these chemical products may seem for a time to be helped, but finally the ability to do any organic work ceases. The life of the organ is its work and product, supervised by the subconscious mind. Favor the eyes with too strong glasses, too much assistance, and they lose power. Appro- priate use is strength, health, life; disuse is weakness, disease, death. " When we prop a person we help him weaken himself, and he will show us his protest by kicking us for it." A vegetarian eats only products from the vegetable kingdom, cooked or uncooked. All the fourteen elements can be gotten from that kingdom. The animal meat one eats is almost entirely or may be wholly derived from the plant kingdom. Eating meat may engender in the eater some of the propensities of the animal eaten. So will eating vegetables engender in the vegetarian the tendency of the peculiar vegetable, but vegetables have milder influ- ences, as a whole, than animals. The mild sub- jective minds of the plants differ from the somewhat emotional mind of the animal, and HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 289 one may receive a worse vibration from the animal meat than from the vegetable. Can- nibalism, man eating man, shows this principle extended. A ferocious savage devouring one of his tribal enemies would be affected in a much wilder way than he would be after feast- ing on a non-combatant. Eating the raw meat would give the peculiar animal-life tendencies, more than eating the meat cooked where all the cell protoplasmic vitality has disappeared. A raw-food vegetarian probably gets better results than the cooked-food vegetarian, for he receives into his system vital cell tissue un- killed by heat. He gets the best tendencies there are, or the worst. It is noted that the person who learns to eat with a normal appetite, cheerfully, with " wat- ering of the mouth, ' ' tends without consciously planning, to become a vegetarian, then to eat uncooked vegetables, and while changing from a meat diet to a vegetarian one he first loses desire for beef and lamb, which contain more nitrogenous products than other meats. Too much nitrogenous meat food leads to too much 290 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTEOL uric acid in the blood, which means poor blood and slow circulation and other devitalizing ni- trogenous effects. Not much nitrogenous food, as compared with sugary and fatty food, is needed by the body for its work. Five grams out of six grams of nitrogenous food taken in one day are excreted from the body in the urine; thus one gram per day suffices for all rebuilding of that kind. The nitrogenous products oxidize into urea, carbon dioxide, water, and various extractives. The sugary and fatty foods largely are changed into water and carbon dioxide. The work and warmth of the body and the thought depend almost entirely on the sugary and fatty prod- ucts eaten. Abdominal obesity, any undue fatness, can be gotten rid of in a natural way. Diaphrag- matic breathing assists. Eating only what the body really needs assists, as in that case there is no excess food in the system to be laid up as fat, lazy fat, for fat lacks oxygen as compared with muscle; when the oxygen and food use each other by thought and muscle action there HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 291 is no second grade formation, undue fatness. Poise, diaphragmatic breathing, and plenty of it, activity of the parts unduly fat, or of the whole body, a normal appetite or eating only what is really needed, drive away or pre- vent obesity. But any one of these acts or habits named tends to bring all the rest. Poise in mind leads to poise in breathing, eating, ac- tivity. Commence by eating cheerfully and with " watering of the mouth/' and all the other good things flow in, for the mind begins to become poised in eating, the good dia- phragmatic breathing follows, and so with any conscious improvement in any direction. One saves himself by emphasizing diaphragmatic breathing, another by employing normal eat- ing, yet another by poising his mind as mind, leaning solely to the metaphysical influences. All lead to health, wholeness. Mind poise, power in each case is aroused. The writer has seen constipation leave in an hour, asthma as quickly, insomnia in a few minutes, colds, coughs, indigestion immediately. The cases were cured by a sudden intelligent understand- 292 HEALTH THROUGH SELF -CONTROL ing by the student of the laws of the emotional effects on the body and the reaction of body on mind ; by the knowledge that two times as much oxygen as digested food in the blood is neces- sary in order to feel well; that so much is in the power of the objectively and subjectively acting mind, — then assuming control of them- selves in the name of universal law, " God in us." It has not occurred to the writer to call these " miracles,' ' but such " healths ob- tained " by some religious practitioners are named " miracles." " A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." When eating too much nitrogenous food, ir- ritating nitrates are formed as in urea, making the body ill at ease. Drinking two quarts or so of water between meals, a little at a time with frequency, not too near the meals, is rec- ommended by many physicians for flushing the bodily tissues, to remove excessive useless nitrogenous products. When one is an un- cooked-food vegetarian he does not need this flushing. He will like to drink if his body needs the water. HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 293 Cooking is not a necessity, it is not practised by wild animals, not even by the most intel- ligent monkeys and apes, not by the wild men. Because man has devised cooking, it is no proof of its wisdom. Man has devised a great many things with his extra developed objective con- scious mind, that are proving detrimental, deathward. It is interesting to note how evolutional " survival of the fittest " has quite differenti- ated the work of the lungs, pores, and kidneys as dischargers of waste matter from the body. The lungs carry off chiefly carbon dioxide and water moisture; the pores especially water moisture; the kidneys, urea, water, and vari- ous nitrogen and hydrogen products. " We are fearfully and wonderfully made. ,, The writer is not advertising any one rule as to what to eat, but rather how to eat. Nat- uralness will follow in each individual if he will emphasize cheerfulness, enjoyment, with " watering of the mouth " and a variety of food, as to all his eating. It is poise, it is har- mony that bring health and success. 294 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL A Civil War veteran in Dalton, Mass., has dieted for five years on raw food at two and one-half cents per meal, eating only once per day; three ounces of uncooked peanuts, one raw onion, and some cabbage leaves, — com- prising all for the day. This diet is varied with fruits, nuts, and various vegetables in their season, the amount eaten remaining the same. He has gotten rid of rheumatism, heart disease, and he is somewhat of an athlete. The very best time to drink water, which is not a food, does not undergo chemical changes in the body, is an hour or so before eating time. The stomach being empty then receives a flushing and is rid of the water before meal- time arrives. Water or any non-food liquid taken with the food, dilutes the chemic juices and thus weakens digestion. Ice water not only does this, but wastes energy in the stom- ach, in loss of temperature. No desire will be felt for water during the meal, if it is thus taken an hour or two before eating. The sub- jective building mind is satisfied and does not call for it, as the body moisture is complete. HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 295 When one is being overcome by any dis- order, disease, let him at once rest, lie down, " go to bed," in a southerly room, lie head to north, omit a meal or two, breathe more pure air, feel very cheerful, smile, sleep, drink water, have no outside callers and none of the family present, if they are sad and fearing, omit conscious thinking, all that it is possible. All this will lessen the energy used, the diges- tive apparatus will have nearly an entire rest, as these minimum processes of the body and mind will be easily supported by ' ' stored-up ' ' protoplasm, cell tissue. Nature soon recuper- ates, if given a chance. Eating is very unwise at these times, unless one is suffering from lack of food; it is usually the reverse of this. No fasting would ever be needed as is now practised if one ate each day only what his thought and work and growth needed. Eating only when hungry obviates the necessity of fasting to use up surplus excessive tissue, to " clean out the body." Plants select subjectively what is needed for their growth, if the requisite food is within 296 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL their reach. We assist them to food needed, else they die. The selective digestive tract of man would do even better than the plants' or- gans if he were as subjectively peaceful as they are, and he can procure all requisite foods; moreover, his normal appetite will report what particular foods are needed. The plant doubt- less reports, but it cannot move about, and no one may hear its asking. Possibly the reader has seen a very receptive, psychic person enter a room and hear him immediately say, ' ' There are plants here somewhere asking for water and food. ,, Evolution and involution have generated, changed, and will continue to change all in- stincts well, if we will use our conscious minds to correct known inharmony with environment, such as displacing hurry with poise, or making it possible to supply the variety the normal ap- petite indicates. With a glad mind, mouth processes well at- tended to, trust in rectified instinct, subjective mind, educated and improved to date; let there be happy, fearless selecting of foods by HOW TO EAT HEALTHFULLY 297 the " digestive tract. " This will at least be more successful than to have one's food weighed out for each meal, so many ounces of nitrogenous, so many of the carbohydratic, so many of the fatty foods, and it is less trouble- some, more educated, more poised, courageous, and healthful. Surely man ought to do as well as to his ali- mentation as the wild animals do, but many are not succeeding as well. Our extra objec- tive, emotional mind can uniformly be so used that we can all succeed as well or better than our less developed friends, the wild animals. Eight nutrition leads to correct character, correct character leads to it. Temperance in eating means more control in all directions. Drunkenness will disappear when legitimate pleasure comes from and in the act of eating, not before. Emotional self-control brings health. Health brings emotional self-control. Health is a habit, it is a science and an art, life is scientific. Health makes one jubilant, enthusiastically poised, prolongs youth into 298 HEALTH THROUGH SELF-CONTROL age. All experiences, whether with water, air, taste, touch contact, muscle action, scenery, colors, sounds, music, noise, adversity, loss, disappointment, success, gain, happiness, no matter what, are sources of strength at once to him who really " enjoys health." Equilibrium is poise, success. A terrapin has recently been found that is two thousand years old. Four hundred years is a " good old age " for such an animal. Here is one that multiplies the average age of his species by five. Equilibrium of eating and of elimination, freedom from injury by his enemies, supply of all needed elements for his body, a life in some way not too much ruffled, all have produced two thousand years of health. Let us take a life hint from the terrapin, and live while we live, in health, and go to pieces if we must, in an instant, like the " one-horse shay." Dying gradually is not to be desired. Age need not be decrepit. CHAPTER VIII SCRIPTUKAL HEALTH St. Paul told the Athenians that the un- known God they were searching for, he was ex- plaining to them. Scientific experiments and observations (which are knowledge of God's ways, character, laws) are proving that the same spirit, the same law, the same God in phenomena that are found to be omnipresent, working ever the same results from equivalent causes, are the same and as scientific whether these causes, laws, and powers are recorded in the Old and New Testament or elsewhere. The universe is a unit. The " unknown God " can be better known. The following Bible quotations are scientific and of universal application. 1 ' If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is 299 300 HEALTH THEOUGH SELF-CONTKOL right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his com- mandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." 1 ' He sent his word and healed them and de- livered them from their destruction." " Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily : and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rear- ward. ' ' 11 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." * * Who f orgiveth all thine inquities ; who healeth all thy diseases. ... So that thy youth is renewed like the eagles." " But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not be faint." " But unto you that hear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his SCEIPTUKAL HEALTH 301 wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.' ' " Heal me and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved : for thou art my praise. ' ' " Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." " Likewise the spirit also helpeth our in- firmities." ' ' And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. . . . Pray for one another that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." THE END. Date Due S f) SL*T